Production of Hydrogen from Biomass using Pyrolysis

The pyrolysis of some selected biomass samples Palm Kernel Shell (PKS), Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB), Sugarcane Bagasse (SCB), Rubber Seed Shell and Kernel (RSSK), and Rubber Seed Shell (RSS), were carried out with the aim of producing Hydrogen using fast pyrolysis in a non iso-thermal pyrolysis temperature of 700°C, 800°C, with the other pyrolysis parameters to be kept constants at 100ml/min inert gas flowrate, 100°C/min heating rate. Both non catalytic and ex-situ catalytic pyrolysis using mesoporous Alumosilicate (Al-MCM-41) as catalyst under the same process parameters. It was observed that the hydrothermal instability structural collapse of Al-MCM-41 affected hydrogen yield at 800°C, but suitable at 700°C. The various biomass showed different variation in the proportion of hydrogen yield at different pyrolysis temperatures, strongly indicating hydrogen yield depends on the biomass elemental composition and pyrolysis temperature and among the few biomass samples experimented on SCB and EFB showed to be promising feedstock with their Hydrogen yield at all the process conditions remarkably above all other samples on the value of 47.17vol% for EFB at 800°C non catalytic pyrolysis, and 50.21vol% for SCB at 700°C catalytic pyrolysis.