Page 188 - Advances in bioenergy (2016)

8

Hydrogen Generation from Biomass Materials:

Challenges and Opportunities

*
1,2
Pravakar Mohanty, Kamal K. Pant1 and Ritesh Mittal 1
1 Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi,
India
2 Sardar Patel Renewable Energy Research Institute (SPRERI), V V Nagar, Gujarat, India

INTRODUCTION

There is a wide scale of increase in the demand of energy and its resources, owing to rapid
increase in industrialization, urbanization, and population outgrowth. The discovery of crude
oil in the 19th century has supplied an inexpensive fossil fuel source that has helped to

industrialize the world and to improve the standards of living. Since then, various fossil fuels
and their derivatives have remained the most favourite and widely exploited resource of
energy for the world. The global use of petroleum and other liquid fossil fuels was 85.7
million barrels/day in 2008 with a projection for an increase to 97.6 million barrels/day in
1
2020 and 112.2 million barrels/day in 2035, respectively. With these concerns for amplifying
the demand of petroleum resources by emerging economies, declining reserves at rapid stage,
and rising fuel prices combined with environmental apprehensions of global warming, it has
become imperative to develop eco-friendly and energy-efficient processes for the sustainable
production of fuels and chemicals. The total world energy consumption in 2008 was 535
quadrillion kJ; however, the consumption is expected to rise to 655 quadrillion kJ in 2020 and

to 812 quadrillion kJ in 2035. 1,2

In this scenario, second to fourth generation biomasses seem to be the most potential sources
among the emerging renewable sources of organic carbon, and the fuels derived from their
processing would be the only alternative liquid fuels to replace the conventional fossil fuels.
Moreover, biofuels are considered to be carbon neutral as the net amount of CO released from
2
their combustion is consumed by the plants during photosynthesis to produce new biomass.
These waste biomasses are lignocellulosic in composition, i.e., they contain two major
structural carbohydrates, cellulose and hemicellulose, bound together by the polymeric lignin.

These three biopolymers are highly energy-rich components as they can easily extract the
2,3
energy from the sun. Lignocellulosic biomass (second generation biomass) is potential
feedstock for the production of biofuels and bio-H as it is inexpensive, available in
2
abundance, supplied worldwide and does not retain any competency towards food supply. For
instance, the annual lignocellulosic biomass availability in the United States and Canada
2,3
ranges from 6 to 256 and 425 to 1000 million dry tons, respectively. The worldwide
biomass energy potential in 2050 has been estimated to be in the range of 150–450