Update of Hydrogen from Biomass -- Determination of the Delivered Cost of Hydrogen

Milestone report summarizing the economic feasibility of producing hydrogen from biomass via (1) gasification/reforming of the resulting syngas and (2) fast pyrolysis/reforming of the resulting bio-oil. Hydrogen has the potential to be a clean alternative to the fossil fuels currently used in the transportation sector. This is especially true if the hydrogen is manufactured from renewable resources, primarily sunlight, wind, and biomass. Analyses have been conducted to assess the economic feasibility of producing hydrogen from biomass via two thermochemical processes: (1) gasification followed by reforming of the syngas, and (2) fast pyrolysis followed by reforming of the carbohydrate fraction of the bio-oil. This study was conducted to update previous analyses of these processes in order to include recent experimental advances and any changes in direction from previous analyses. The systems examined were gasification in the Battelle/FERCO low pressure indirectly-heated gasifier followed by steam reforming, gasification in the Institute of Gas Technology (IGT) high pressure direct-fired gasifier followed by steam reforming, and pyrolysis followed by coproduct separation and steam reforming. In each process, water-gas shift is used to convert the reformed gas into hydrogen, and pressure swing adsorption is used to purify the product. The delivered cost of hydrogen, as wellmore » as the plant gate hydrogen selling price, were determined. All analyses included Latin Hypercube sampling to obtain a detailed sensitivity analysis.« less