Integrated Reactor Design for Hydrogen Production From Biomass-Sourced Reactant Streams, Using the Aqueous Phase Carbohydrate Reforming (ACR) Process

72687S03-I Current biomass gasification technologies are not economically viable as stand alone processes that generate fuel gas, steam, or electricity. Accordingly, such gasification processes must be coupled with the production of higher-value products in future biorefining processes. A newly discovered gasification technology offers the possibility of generating hydrogen-rich gas from aqueous-phase carbohydrate streams, such as waste streams from current biomass processing plants (e.g. cheese manufacturing, beer brewing, paper manufacturing, ethanol production). This project will develop a reactor system that allows the generation of hydrogen from aqueous-phase carbohydrate streams in a single reactor. To enable the production of high yields of hydrogen, Phase I will: (1) design and build prototype reactors, (2) identify the necessary catalyst substrate for the reactor configuration, and (3) identify optimum operating conditions. An aqueous-phase glucose solution will be used to provide a technical foundation for Phase II, where an integrated reactor will be designed and built to process high-carbohydrate content waste water streams. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by awardee: In the near term, the technology should improve the efficiency of existing biomass-based industries such as paper mills, ethanol fuel production, cheese production, beer production, etc., by generating hydrogen. The hydrogen product could be utilized as a chemical for the treatment of food oils and the production of fertilizer. In the longer term, the technology could be used as a critical sugar stream bioconversion process in biorefineries, to generate fuels or chemical hydrogen, using indigenous biomass as a raw material.