Life-cycle assessment of hydrogen production via catalytic gasification of wheat straw in the presence of straw derived biochar catalyst

Adrian Chun Minh Loy; Hatem Alhazmi; Serene Sow Mun Lock; Chung Loong Yiin; Kin Wai Cheah; Bridgid Lai Fui Chin; Bing Shen How; Suzana Yusup

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125796

Life-cycle assessment of hydrogen production via catalytic gasification of wheat straw in the presence of straw derived biochar catalyst

Bioresour Technol. 2021 Dec:341:125796. doi: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125796. Epub 2021 Aug 21.

Authors

Adrian Chun Minh Loy¹, Hatem Alhazmi², Serene Sow Mun Lock³, Chung Loong Yiin⁴, Kin Wai Cheah⁵, Bridgid Lai Fui Chin⁶, Bing Shen How⁷, Suzana Yusup⁸

Affiliations

¹ HICoE - Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical Research, Institute of Self-Sustainable Building, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, Perak 32610, Malaysia. Electronic address: adriaminh@gmail.com.
² National Center for Environmental Technology (NCET), King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), P.O. Box 6086, 11442 Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
³ CO2 Research Center (CO2RES), Department of Chemical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Malaysia.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering and Energy Sustainability, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), Kota Samarahan, 94300, Sarawak, Malaysia.
⁵ Energy and Environment Institute, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom.
⁶ Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Science, Curtin University Malaysia, CDT 250, 98009 Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia.
⁷ Research Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Faculty of Engineering, Computing and Science, Swinburne University of Technology, Jalan Simpang Tiga, 93350 Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia.
⁸ HICoE - Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical Research, Institute of Self-Sustainable Building, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Seri Iskandar, Perak 32610, Malaysia.

PMID: 34454232
DOI: 10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125796

Abstract

The environmental footprints of H₂productionviacatalytic gasification of wheat straw using straw-derived biochar catalysts were examined. The functional unit of 1 kg of H₂was adopted in the system boundaries, which includes 5 processes namely biomass collection and pre-treatment units (P1), biochar catalyst preparation using fast pyrolysis unit (P2), two-stage pyrolysis-gasification unit (P3), products separation unit (P4), and H₂distribution to downstream plants (P5). Based on the life-cycle assessment, the hot spots in this process were identified, the sequence was as follows: P4 > P2 > P1 > P3 > P5. The end-point impacts score for the process was found to be 93.4017 mPt. From benchmarking analysis, the proposed straw-derived biochar catalyst was capable of offering almost similar catalytic performance with other metal-based catalysts with a lower environmental impact.

Keywords: Biochar; Biomass; Gasification; Hydrogen; Life-cycle analysis.

MeSH terms

Biomass
Charcoal*
Hydrogen
Pyrolysis
Triticum*

Substances

biochar
Charcoal
Hydrogen