Hydrogen production by the catalytic reforming of non-food biomass-derived crude mixtures of liquid oxygenated hydrocarbons with carbon dioxide capture

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Even though hydrogen possesses the highest energy content per unit weight compared to any of the knownfuels, and burns cleanly, it does not exist in the free form. An economically viable way to obtain hydrogen fromrenewable sources will provide a good alternative to the present world-wide reliance on fossil fuels. There is ahuge opportunity to develop the capacity to use components derived from non-purified, non-food biomassderived feed materials for hydrogen production because this would ease the pressure in using food basedbiomass, eliminate the huge amount of energy required for purification, and provide added benefit forconverting wastes to value added products. These components could be derived from non-intensive processesfor conversion of cellulosic materials to oxygenated hydrocarbons (i.e. not specific to ethanol alone) easily at alow cost. Also, the oxygenated hydrocarbons could be obtained as wastes from biodiesel production. Thesemultiple sources of oxygenated hydrocarbons ensures that the hydrogen production process can managefeedstock supply and volatility. Furthermore, in order to derive an additional advantage from the use ofbiomass materials to achieve huge environmental benefits, CO2 capture must be incorporated in the process.This will ensure that we not merely achieve a net zero emissions, but actually use the process to extract CO2that already exists in the atmosphere. Our objectives are to: (i) develop a high performance catalyst for thereforming of any non-food or waste biomass derived crude mixtures of liquid oxygenated hydrocarbonsincluding higher alcohols, organic acids, glycerol, etc., (ii) develop the process conditions as well as integrationand optimization strategies for the process, and (iii) develop and incorporate a CO2 capture strategy for theproduction of the cleanest fuel, hydrogen.