Environmental and thermodynamic performance assessment of biomass gasification process for hydrogen production in a downdraft gasifier

Abstract Gasification is one of the most efficient techniques for sustainable hydrogen production from biomass. In this study, a comparative performance analysis of the gasification process using various types of biomass materials was undertaken via thermodynamic approach. Air, steam, and air/steam as the traditional gasifying agents were applied to provide an opportunity to choose the most proper agent in the process. This paper also evaluates the environmental impacts of the process in terms of CO2 emission by using Aspen Energy Analyzer. The effects of agent to biomass molar ratio, agent inlet temperature, moisture content of biomass material, and gasification temperature were estimated based on the producer gas compositions, hydrogen yield and heating values. The results indicate that the highest hydrogen yield (0.074 g H2/g biomass) was obtained in the steam gasification of plastic, while air gasification of paper generates the lowest one. It was also observed that manure is the most beneficial from environmental perspectives, while tire and plastic have the highest contribution to CO2 emission and consequently global warming. The higher values of hydrogen production and LHV of produced gas are associated respectively with using steam, air/steam, and air as the gasification agents. The lowest value of CO2 emission is obtained for air, air/steam, and steam as the gasifying agents, respectively.