Hydrogen production enhancement using hot gas cleaning system combined with prepared Ni-based catalyst in biomass gasification

This paper investigates the hot gas temperature effect on enhancing hydrogen generation and minimizing tar yield using zeolite and prepared Ni-based catalysts in rice straw gasification. Results obtained from this work have shown that increasing hot gas temperature and applying catalysts can enhance energy yield efficiency. When zeolite catalyst and hot gas temperature were adjusted from 250 °C to 400 °C, H₂ and CO increased slightly from 7.31% to 14.57%–8.03% and 17.34%, respectively. The tar removal efficiency varies in the 70%–90% range. When the zeolite was replaced with prepared Ni-based catalysts and hot gas cleaning (HGC) operated at 250 °C, H₂ contents were significantly increased from 6.63% to 12.24% resulting in decreasing the hydrocarbon (tar), and methane content. This implied that NiO could promote the water-gas shift reaction and CH₄ reforming reaction. Under other conditions in which the hot gas temperature was 400 °C, deactivated effects on prepared Ni-based catalyst were observed for inhibiting syngas and tar reduction in the HGC system. The prepared Ni-based catalyst worked at 250 °C demonstrate higher stability, catalyst activity, and less coke decomposition in dry reforming. In summary, the optimum catalytic performance in syngas production and tar elimination was achieved when the catalytic temperature was 250 °C in the presence of prepared Ni-based catalysts, producing 5.92 MJ/kg of lower heating value (LHV) and 73.9% tar removal efficiency.