Application of Biomass to Hydrogen and Syngas Production

Today there is a worldwide interest in the use of biomass as an environmental friendly renewable energy source. The depletion of fossil oil reserves, constant uncertainties as far as price is concerned, unsecured supplies, and environmental pollution are among the many energy problems, when the use of fossil fuels are considered. Greenhouse effect and its consequences on climate change is one of the drawbacks resulting from the extensive use of this kind of fuels. These problems require the development of new alternative fuels such as biofuels. In this way, the biomass appears as an attractive source for the production of fuels and chemicals due to its versatility, renewable nature and low environmental impacts. The available energy production processes from biomass can, roughly, be divided into two general categories, to know: thermochemical and biological processes. Pyrolysis, gasification, reforming and combustion are the four thermochemical processes and direct biophotolysis, indirect biophotolysis, biological water–gas shift reaction, photo-fermentation and dark-fermentation are the five biological processes. Alternative thermochemical via (pyrolysis and gasification) can be practically applied to produce hydrogen and syngas from many types of renewable feedstock and deserve special attention. Bearing this in mind, this paper gives an overview of these technologies for hydrogen and syngas production from biomass.