Muhaimin Iqbal
Author

The New Green Hydrogen: Regenerative BioHydrogen

Advanced Renewable

Mon , 06 May 2024 17:40 WIB

When biomass fuel is burned and emits CO2 emissions, the emissions are considered carbon-neutral, because these CO2 emissions come from the CO2 that plants absorb for photosynthesis when they grow. What if these carbon-neutral emissions are re-captured and re-processed into further fuels? Apart from producing carbon-free energy, bio-energy production will be very cheap, because the same biomass is used repeatedly.

So this is the new type of green hydrogen which we call Regenerative BioHydrogen (RBH), namely hydrogen that is produced with biomass and CO2 emissions from biomass in the previous process. From the series of reactions in the image below, we will be able to see that the BioHydrogen production process through this way, will have CO2-free in the net result.

First, the biomass (carbon) is reacted with steam to produce CO and H2 gas (1), then the CO gas is reacted with steam again, the results are H2 and CO2 (2). From this second reaction there is CO2 emission, but we recapture this CO2 again and react with carbon, the result is 2 CO gas (3).

If I add up these three series of reactions, 2C when they are reacted with 2H2O, will produce 2H2 and 2CO (4). Equation 4 is what we call the Regenerative BioHydrogen (RBH) equation. Equation 4 is the same as 2x equation 1, what does this mean?

Like everything that grows, it will grow more and more every day. Likewise with Regenerative BioHydrogen, our resources for producing RBH will increase day by day. From equation 4, apart from our H2 as main production, we have waste in the form of CO.

But this waste in the form of CO is a nice thing to have, because to make it more H2, the CO just needs to be reacted with H2O again (reaction 2), and this what so called Water Gas Shift (WGS) reaction is exothermic, meaning that producing H2 from CO does not require energy, instead it produces energy (heat).

By circulating CO for the production of H2 from biomass, the production of green hydrogen, which we call RBH, will be very competitive in terms of energy requirements, costs, and carbon-free net results. A small amount of carbon footprint of course still exists, namely from transporting raw materials or products - which are outside the RBH system, and this even, can still be minimized by producing RBH as local fuels, namely fuel that is produced and used in the same area.

When we can produce green hydrogen at lower cost like this RBH, we can synthesize any green fuels we need also at a lower cost. Not just for fuels, green hydrogen also needed to produce green ammonia, fertilizers and various industrial processes.

The RBH reactor to facilitate the 3 series of reactions mentioned above can be made on a small scale, in a 20 ft container, so that it can be presented wherever this new type of green hydrogen is needed.