Hydrogen from biomass via pyrolysis: Relationships between yield of hydrogen and temperature

Hydrogen is a sustainable, non-polluting source of energy that can be used in mobile and stationary applications. The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier or major fuel requires development in several industry segments including production, delivery, storage, conversion, and end-use. It is an obvious alternative to hydrocarbon fuels such as gasoline. Hydrogen can be produced through thermal, electrolytic, or photolytic processes applied to fossil fuels, biomass, or water. The yields of gaseous products from pyrolysis runs of the biomass samples increase with increasing pyrolysis temperature. The yield of hydrogen in gaseous products from the samples of hazelnut shell, cotton cocoon shell, tea factory waste, olive husk, beech wood and spruce wood increased from 34.0 to 54.8%, 22.1 to 41.0%, 28.9 to 47.8%, 36.0 to 50.6%, 31.5 to 48.3%, and 33.2 to 49.6%, respectively, while the final pyrolysis temperature increased from 650 to 1025 K. There is a relationship between the yield of hydrogen in a gaseous product from the biomass sample and pyrolysis temperature. The yield of hydrogen is a linear function of the pyrolysis temperature.