Page 216 - Advances in bioenergy (2016)

9

Production of Renewable Hydrogen by Reformation of

Biofuels

1
2
2
Paraskevi Panagiotopoulou, Christina Papadopoulou, Haris Matralis and Xenophon
Verykios 3*
1 Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation and Center for Catalytic Science and Technology,
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Delaware, Newark,
DE, USA
2 Department of Chemistry, University of Patras, Patras, Greece
3 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Patras, Patras, Greece

INTRODUCTION

Considerable changes in the use of global energy and material resources have occurred during
the last decades. The rising demand for energy, which is associated with economic growth,
imparts a heavy impact on local and regional environment. On the other hand, the volatility of
oil and natural gas prices illustrates the necessity of diversity, sustainability, and security in
energy supply. Energy production is still mainly based on combustion of fossil fuels, a fact
which is unlikely to change in the near future. For this reason, CO emissions are expected to
2
increase. Furthermore, deforestation and changes in land usage aggravate the problem of the
greenhouse phenomenon, causing global warming and unpredictability of weather patterns.
Restrictions concerning gas emissions urgently demand the development of clean energy
technologies with minimum environmental impact.

The use of hydrogen as an energy vector has been proposed as a solution to the global
environmental problem related to the greenhouse effect. It must be realized, however, that for
an effective solution, hydrogen would have to be produced from renewable resources.
Although hydrogen can be produced from excess renewable electricity via electrolysis, with
zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, this cannot be adapted in distributed power generation
due to severe difficulties in hydrogen storage and transportation. To overcome these
difficulties, the idea of hydrogen production on site and on demand has been gaining ground.
This implies that an appropriate hydrogen carrier, which could be liquid or gas, can be used to

extract hydrogen from. The employment of hydrogen as an energy carrier, combined with fuel
cell systems, will lead to low or no carbon emissions and no emissions of atmospheric
pollutants. The most appropriate renewable hydrogen carrier seems to be biomass components
and derivatives, such as alcohols, bio-oil, and biogas. Reformation of these, in a distributed
power generation mode, could offer significant energy and environmental advantages.