Exergy Analysis of Hydrogen Production Process Using Supercritical Water Gasification of Biomass

Abstract

Biomass is expected to be a cheap and renewable source of hydrogen. Especially, wet biomass such as sewage sludge and water hyacinth is a good candidate for feedstocks of hydrogen production. Supercritical water biomass gasification process, which has been shown to be suitable for wet biomass processing, is further analyzed to determine the location in the process and the amount of the exergy losses taking place. The result is presented to show the validity of improving the process efficiency with expected cost increase for the purpose. Cost versus exergy efficiency curve is drawn to show the possibility of wet biomass utilization.