SYSTEMATIC DESIGN ALGORITHM FOR ENERGY EFFICIENT AND COST EFFECTIVE HYDROGEN PRODUCTION FROM PALM WASTE

• Main Author: INAYAT, ABRAR
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: TP Chemical technology
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/21330/1/2012%20-CHEMICAL%20-%20SYSTEMATIC%20DESIGN%20ALGORITHAM%20FOR%20ENERGY%20EFFICIENT%20%26%20COST%20EFFECTIVE%20HYDROGEN%20PRODUCTION%20FROM%20PALM%20WASTE%20-%20ABRAR%20INAYAT.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/21330/

The energy crisis and environmental issues caused by fossil fuels usage have brought new light on hydrogen as a potentially significant form of energy in the future. The idea of producing hydrogen from oil palm biomass in Malaysia seems attractive due to the resource abundance. Biomass steam gasification with in-situ carbon dioxide capture in the presence of catalyst has good prospects for the enhanced production of hydrogen rich gas. Despite these potentials, its application at industrial scale is limited due to the energy intensiveness, costs and hazards of gasification process at high temperatures (>823K). Modelling and optimization become an increasingly attractive design approach to investigate the gasification performance within an extensive range of operating parameters. However, the existing design methods are limited to allow simultaneous and integrated assessment of process performance, heat efficiency and costs. In the current study, a systematic autonomous algorithm incorporating reaction kinetics model, flowsheet calculations, heat integration analysis and economic evaluation, has been developed to calculate optimum parameters giving minimum hydrogen production cost using optimization strategies. A simplified flowsheet has been developed for hydrogen production from biomass via catalytic steam gasification with in-situ carbon dioxide capture. A first order reaction kinetics model was next developed to represent the reactions occurring in the gasification system. The heat integration model based on mixed integer non-linear programming was also developed to minimize the utility cost and heat exchanger area cost for the gasification system to incorporate energy efficiency evaluation. A cost minimization work on the ±1owsheet subject to the reaction kinetics behaviour, mass and energy balances and minimum utility cost, to obtain the optimal parameters, has been conducted. In addition, experimental work has been performed using a gasification unit to obtain the reaction kinetics parameters.