Investigation of hydrogen production from biomass-derived synthesis gas and integrated a power generation system

The demand for uninterrupted energy is increasing rapidly along with the development of technology and industrial growth. The reserves of fossil fuels, which are largely dependent on foreign sources especially in our country today, are decreasing day by day. It has gained importance to generate the required energy from sustainable, domestic and renewable sources such as biomass, geothermal, solar and wind. At the same time, the development and implementation of alternative clean fuel technologies to fossil fuels is important in terms of eliminating future concerns. At this point, although not molecularly common in nature, hydrogen gas which can be produced from different sources in nature by various methods and has high energy content, stands out as an alternative fuel. It is anticipated that the economic and efficient implementation of combined hydrogen and power generation systems will greatly contribute to the sustainability of the supply and demand balance in energy with the increasing of hydrogen-based technologies in the future. In this study, it is aimed to examine the production of hydrogen from synthesis gas produced by gasification of biomass using thermochemical processes and to model a renewable source based power generation system to supply the energy required by hydrogen production process. Within this scope, two different power generation systems based on geothermal and solar energy sources are modeled integrated with the hydrogen production process that provides high purity hydrogen production. The modeled integrated hydrogen and power generation systems are examined by computer aided simulation using Aspen HYSYS package program. In addition, by using the exergy analysis method, the performances of the modeled hydrogen and power generation systems were examined separately and their energy and exergy efficiencies were evaluated. Thus, the feasibility of a hybrid power generation system using renewable resources integrated with the hydrogen production process together with a system in which high value-added hydrogen gas from biomass based synthesis gas, which is a domestic and renewable resource was investigated.