Production of biogas by SCF technology

Abstract

Hydrogen is expected to become an important fuel in the long-term since in combination with fuel cells it offers the opportunity of an intrinsically clean energy supply. By application of supercritical water gasification (SCWG) concept, sustainable hydrogen can be produced from biomass and waste. The paper offers an overview of some recently published papers dealing with SCWG of model compounds and a summary of the investigations on SCWG of real agricultural and food processing wastes. In the frame of our work an intense research was performed to support analyses of SCWG of glycerol and was supported by the investigation of phase equilibrium for the systems gas/water and gas mixtures/water. When glycerol/water solutions were directly injected in the reactor operating at supercritical conditions, gases with high C2+ were obtained by the reforming in supercritical water unit. To reduce the hydrocarbon concentrations and to obtain a syngas with higher CO/CO2 ratios from a mixture of gases (H2, CO, CO2 and CH4), catalytic reactions at high pressure and temperature were introduced reflecting in an increase of the content of H2 and CO. Solubility measurements were conducted for the binary systems of gas and water at elevated pressures and temperatures.

Keywords

• supercritical water
• biofuels
• phase equilibria
• hydrogen production.