Multifunctional Tunable Contaminant Filter for Clean Hydrogen Production

Hydrogen has been widely considered a clean fuel of the future and using carbonaceous feedstocks including biomass and other wastes to produce clean hydrogen is particularly attractive. In the gasification process to turn these carbonaceous feedstocks into raw synthesis gas, a myriad of contaminants, such as particulates, ammonia, and heavy metals are formed. Raw synthesis gas containing these contaminants must be purified to meet downstream process requirements and pollution control regulations. The proposed research will develop and commercialize a multifunctional tunable contaminant filter for clean hydrogen production. The proposed contaminant filter can remove a wide range of the impurities formed during the gasification process that converts many solid feedstocks, such as biomass, coal wastes, waste plastics, industrial wastes, and municipal solid wastes, into synthesis gas. The removal capacity of the filter for a particular impurity can be tuned according to the composition of a solid feedstock. The proposed filter contains chemically modified silicas and glass fiber filter media that will be developed and commercialized in the proposed research. The chemically modified silicas and glass fiber filter media that can withstand the high temperatures and high pressures of synthesis gas production processes. Therefore, the proposed filter can be easily integrated into current synthesis gas processes and reduce the cost of produced hydrogen. The proposed contaminant filters can also be used as filters to remove heavy metals in waste water, or as oil filters to remove contaminants from engine oil, transmission oil, lubricating oil, or hydraulic oil. Our proposed research and commercialization plan includes: (1) in Phase I, evaluate several surface modification chemistries on silica and glass fiber filter media, test their removal efficiencies with several select impurities, and finalize the surface modification chemistries, (2) in Phase I, build a prototype filter with chemically modified silica and glass fiber filter media, (3) in Phase II, the prototype filter will be tested with more impurities, (4) in Phase II, the prototype filter will be scaled up into a commercial size filter, further optimized according to customer feedbacks, and commercialized.