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EnergyProcedia 142
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(2017)1577–1581
000–000
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9th International Conference on Applied Energy, ICAE2017, 21-24 August 2017, Cardiff, UK

Assessment of Energy Flows in Integrated Catalytic Adsorption (ICA)

TheSteam Gasification
15th International for Hydrogen
Symposium on District Production
Heating and Cooling

Assessing
Zakir theKhanfeasibility
a,b
*, Suzana Yusup of cusing
, Prashant the heata, Ian
Kamble demand-outdoor
Watsona
temperature function for a long-term district heat demand forecast
Systems Power and Energy, School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8LL, UK
a

Department of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Lahore, 54000, Pakistan
b
c
Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Tronoh, 31750, Perak, Malaysia

I. Andrića,b,c*, A. Pinaa, P. Ferrãoa, J. Fournierb., B. Lacarrièrec, O. Le Correc

a
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research - Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
Abstract b
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques
Biomass has a potential to produce sustainable et Environnement
and renewable hydrogen -due
IMTto Atlantique, 4 rueand
its low sulphur Alfred Kastler,
nitrogen 44300
content Nantes,
(low France
NOx and SOx emissions)
and contributes towards net CO2 cycle. Biomass steam gasification is found to be most promising among thermal conservation processes for
renewable hydrogen production. The energy required for gasification using steam is high compared to other gasification agents e.g. air or pure
oxygen. The integrated catalytic adsorption (ICA) utilizes catalyst and CO 2 adsorbent together in the single fluidized bed gasifier. The present
Abstract
study investigates the energy flows to optimize the gasification energy requirement with respect to hydrogen concentration and yield in the ICA
process at 600, 650 and 750 °C. The overall gasification energy required increased with increasing gasification temperature from 675 to 750 °C.
However,
District aheating
slight reduction
networksin required energy was
are commonly observed from
addressed 600literature
in the °C to 675as
°C one
which ofmight be dueeffective
the most to strong CO 2 adsorption,
solutions an exothermic
for decreasing the
reaction, and contributes to the energy requirements of the process. This was further verified with zero CO and
greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. These systems require high investments which are returned through
2 highest hydrogen compositions
the heat
(82 vol%)Due
sales. at 675
to °C.
theHowever,
changedICA steam gasification
climate conditions isand
found to be a high
building energy consuming
renovation policies, process and heat in
heat demand integration has to
the future be considered
could decrease,
for an economical hydrogen generation process.
prolonging the investment return period.
The main scope of this paper is to assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
forecast. The
Peer-review underdistrict of Alvalade,
responsibility locatedcommittee
of the scientific in Lisbon (Portugal),
of the was used
9th International as a case
Conference study. Energy.
on Applied The district is consisted of 665
buildings that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district
renovation
Keywords: Massscenarios
and energy;were developed
hydrogen; (shallow,
fluidized bed, intermediate,
Integrated, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were
steam gasification;
compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors.
The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
1.(the
Introduction
error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
New
The developments
value demonstrate
of slope coefficient the tremendous
increased on average efforts that the
within are being
range made to enhance
of 3.8% up to 8%theper
quality and that
decade, quantity of renewable
corresponds to the
hydrogen from biomass gasification. The efforts are mainly focused on reducing the number of process
decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather units by introducing novel
and
catalyst [1, 2],
renovation CO2 sorption
scenarios [3-5] orOn
considered). coupling bothhand,
the other in thefunction
same reactors (after
intercept gasification)
increased [6] and/or per
for 7.8-12.7% in separate
decade reactors (after
(depending onthe
the
pyrolysis
coupled step) [7]. However,
scenarios). The valuesutilizing methane
suggested reforming
could be usedcatalyst and CO
to modify sorbent together
the2 function in one
parameters forbed
themay have an
scenarios advantage and
considered, of
needing
improvea the
single reactor.
accuracy The demand
of heat CO2 capturing through carbonation reaction shifts the equilibrium of water gas shift and steam
estimations.
methane reforming towards more hydrogen production [8]. The addition of catalyst will further enhance the activity of steam
methane
© 2017 reforming
The Authors. towards hydrogen
Published production
by Elsevier Ltd.[9]. Steam gasification is being identified as a potential process to produce clean
hydrogen [10] and using steam as the sole gasification
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee agent hasofnumerous
The 15thadvantages over
International air or pureon
Symposium oxygen, which
District is considered
Heating and
Cooling.

Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44-141-330-4070,

E-mail address: [email protected]

1876-6102
1876-6102 © 2017
© 2017 TheThe Authors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.
Peer-review
Peer-reviewunder responsibility
under of theof
responsibility scientific committee
the Scientific of the 9thof
Committee International Conference onSymposium
The 15th International Applied Energy.
on District Heating and Cooling.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th International Conference on Applied Energy.
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.12.610
1578 Zakir Khan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 1577–1581
2 Zakir Khan/ Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

costly for small scale operation [11]. However, utilizing steam has a high energy penalty; consequently, optimal experimental
conditions need to be identified to allow efficient and economical gasification operation.

The present study addresses the energy flow of ICA steam gasification in a pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed. The study investigates
the energy balances with respect to gasification temperature along with hydrogen production under the limitation of CO 2 adsorption
temperature inside the gasifier.

Nomenclature

H enthalpy
Hf formation enthalpy
∆Hi change in enthalpy of individual component
ni moles flow rate of individual component
QSteam energy associated with steam
QExt external energy (energy provide by external heater)
PKS palm kernel shell

2. Material and Methods

2.1. ICA steam gasification system

Figure 1 shows a process diagram of pilot scale fluidized bed ICA steam gasification system.

Fig. 1. ICA steam gasification system

The gasification system mainly comprises a fluidized bed reactor with external electric heaters, biomass feeding system, steam
generator and superheater, cyclone solid separator, wet scrubber, water separator, and gas analyzing system. After the gasifier,
product gas passes through the cyclone to separate solid particles from the product gas. The product gas then passes through the
scrubber and attains a temperature less than 40 °C and followed by a separator to remove any final traces of water in the product
gas stream. The gas sampling point is located at the exit of water separator. The gas analyzing system consisted of Gas
Chromatography (Teledyne 7500, Teledyne Analytical Instrument) with an Infrared (IR) type detector. Hydrogen and nitrogen
were detected by Gas Chromatography utilizing a Molecular Sieve.

2.2. Energy balance

The energy balance over the fluidized bed gasifier is shown in Figure 2 and is carried out using Equation (1).

N M

 (H
i 1
PKS  H H 2 0  Qsteam  QExt )   ( H H 2  H CO  H CO2  H CH4  H unreactedsteam )
e 1
(1)

Generally, H is calculated based on the heat of formation or formation enthalpy represented as Hf. The enthalpy of each
component is calculated using Equation (2).
 Zakir Khan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 1577–1581 1579
Zakir Khan/ Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 3

H i  ni  ( H f (i )  H i ) (2)

This can be further elaborated in terms of specific capacity, Cp, along with initial T1 and T2 final temperatures. ∆Hi is then
calculated using Equation (3).

T2

H i   C p dT (3)
T1

The values for Hf and Cp are given in Appendix A. The energy balance was carried out using eSankey 2.x software.

Fig. 2. Energy balance of integrated catalytic adsorption (ICA) steam gasification of palm kernel shell

3. Results and discussions

From the energy analysis of the energy inputs into the gasifier, it was found that the energy required for gasification increased
from 3.64 to 4.74 kW with an increase gasifier temperature from 600°C to 750°C. The analysis clearly indicates that the required
energy increases due to the endothermic nature of the process. Generally, the energy is utilized to heat up the injected steam to the
desired reactor temperature, biomass decomposition and associated endothermic reactions i.e. char gasification and methane
reforming. As the temperature of the gasifier increases, the energy requirements increase inside the reactor. This increasing energy
consumption enhances the product gas yield via endothermic reactions which corresponds to higher energy released in the outlet
stream, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. Similarly, high activity of endothermic reactions increase the steam consumption inside the
reactor which reduces the energy associated with unreacted steam at the exit of the fluidized bed gasifier. A major part of the
energy is released as unreacted steam in the process which can be optimized through heat integration. The increase of external
energy requirements with increasing gasification temperature was also observed by Franco et al. [10] for biomass steam gasification
in fluidized bed gasifier.

Fig. 3. Energy balance over gasifier at 600°C

41580 ZakirEnergy
Zakir Khan/ KhanProcedia
et al. / Energy Procedia
00 (2017) 000–000142 (2017) 1577–1581

Fig. 4. Energy balance over gasifier at 750°C

Figure 5 shows the product gas composition with the gasification energy required at 600 °C, 675 C° and 750 °C. The energy
required first decreased from 600 °C to 675 °C (3.64 kW to 3.41 kW) and then increased at 750 °C (4.74 kW). This may be due to
the highly active CO2 adsorption reaction at 675 °C which can also be verified by maximum H 2 with zero CO2 concentration. The
exothermic nature of the CO2 adsorption reaction provides heat for endothermic gasification reactions and reduces the overall
energy requirements for the process in the gasifier [12]. Besides, H2 yield increases with increasing gasification energy and the
maximum yield were observed at 750 °C. At high temperature, biomass to gaseous conversion is high and the individual gas
component flow rates are higher compared to that at lower temperatures. High temperatures favour endothermic reactions i.e.
methane reforming which forms three hydrogen molecules for each methane molecule consumed. This can also be justified by
lower methane concentration at high temperature (750 °C). Tar cracking is also an endothermic reaction and may contribute to an
increase in hydrogen content in the product gas [13].

Fig. 5. Effect of temperature on product gas composition and required gasification energy at steam to biomass ratio of 1.5 (wt/wt), catalyst to biomass ratio of 0.1
(wt/wt) and fluidization velocity of 0.21 m/s

4. Conclusions

Steam is found to be the most promising gasification agent for hydrogen production as compared to air or pure oxygen. However,
steam brings a high energy plenty to the process in terms of required energy for gasification. The present study showed that the
process power requirements were overall increased with increasing temperature from 675 to 750 °C, whilst a slight drop was
observed from 600 °C to 675 °C. This affect contributed to high CO2 adsorption at 675 °C which helped to reduce the energy
requirements. The unreacted steam carried away the major portion of the energy from the system, capturing and integrating this
potential heat loss improves the viability, energy efficiency and economic case for hydrogen production via gasification.

Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge financial and technical support by Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS.
 Zakir Khan/ Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000 5

Zakir Khan et al. / Energy Procedia 142 (2017) 1577–1581 1581

Appendix A.

Table 1. Enthalpy and heat capacity of components at the reference state [14, 15]
Component Hf ,(J.mol-1) Cp(J.mol-1K)
Water -241830 72.43+(10.39×10-3)T-(1.50×10-6)T2

Hydrogen 0 27.01+(3.51×10-3)T-(0.69×105)T-2

Carbon monoxide -110530 28.07+(4.63×10-3)T-(0.26×105)T-2

Carbon dioxide -393520 45.37+(8.69×10-3)T-(9.62×105)T-2

Methane -74870 14.15+(75.5×10-3)T-(18×0-6)T2

Calcium oxide -635600 41.84+(2.03×10-2)T-(4.52×105)T-2

1206900 82.34+(4.97×10-2)T-(12.87×105)T-2
Calcium carbonate

x
LHV  H f CO2  ( H f H 2O ) 176.67+(406.84×10-3)T-(59.82×105)T-2-(151.54×10-6 (T2)
PKS (Cellulose) 2

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