DefinePK

Abstract

The increase prices of conventional energy sources particularly fossil fuels are usually based on the needs to match the energy demands which consequently accelerating the depletion of fossil fuels. Therefore, a renewable energy provides an attractive alternatives to replace the fossil fuels. One of the widely used renewable energy source is biomass waste such as wood sawdust due to its abundances and availabilities. This biomass waste can be used in gasification process in order to produce the hydrogen gas which is useful for energy production. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to develop a comprehensive integrated gasification and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) framework for a wide range of gasification process. The application of the integrated framework is highlighted through biomass gasification using fluidized bed by utilizing sawdust as biomass input. The biomass gasification model is developed in Aspen Plus and it is also considering the hydrodynamic and reaction rate kinetics simultaneously. The developed biomass gasification using pine sawdust is tested and the results obtained are in good agreement with literature data where the slight relative mean square erros of 0.018, 0.226, 0.726 and 0.317 for the H2, CO2, CH4 and CO respectively are achieved indicating a reliable gasification model is obtained. Subsequently the wood sawdust is used as an input and the results show 23.47% hydrogen gas has been produced from wood sawdust which is relatively higher than 20.86% of hydrogen gas produced using pine sawdust. Finally it has been shown through sensitivity analysis the hydrogen gas can be produced up to 47.37% when the temperature is operated at 900 °C and up to 34.96% when equivalence ratio is at 0.205 indicating an improved better gasification performance.