Biomass pyrolysis and in-line air–steam reforming as a potential strategy to progress towards sustainable ammonia production

The steady growth in world population has increased the need for ammonia-derived products, especially fertilizers. Current ammonia production is highly energy intensive and emits huge amounts of CO2 due to the use of natural gas. Therefore, progress on the sustainability of the process is urgently r...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: García González, Irati, Cortázar Dueñas, María, Santamaría Moreno, Laura, López Zabalbeitia, Gartzen, Bilbao Elorriaga, Javier, Olazar Aurrecoechea, Martin, Amutio Izaguirre, Maider, Artetxe Uria, Maite
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2024
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/71794
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/71794
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:ammonia
Hydrogen
biomass
air-steam reforming
thermodynamic study
Descripción
Sumario:The steady growth in world population has increased the need for ammonia-derived products, especially fertilizers. Current ammonia production is highly energy intensive and emits huge amounts of CO2 due to the use of natural gas. Therefore, progress on the sustainability of the process is urgently required. Biomass pyrolysis and in-line air–steam reforming is an encouraging process for the renewable and sustainable ammonia production. Thus, this work studies the potential of this process to produce a stream containing H2 and N2 (from the air) in a 3:1 ratio suitable for the Haber-Bosch process. First, a thermodynamic assessment was performed to ascertain the most suitable conditions to obtain a gas stream with a suitable H2/N2 ratio. The simulations were carried out using AVEVA Pro II software by varying the amount of air ER (Equivalence Ratios from 0.13 to 0.17) incorporated into the inlet stream (mixture of air and steam) fed into the reformer of biomass volatiles. Based on the simulation results, the integrated process of biomass pyrolysis and in-line air–steam reforming was conducted in a bench-scale plant, which combines conical spouted bed reactor (CSBR) and fluidized bed reactor (FBR) technologies for the pyrolysis and air–steam reforming steps, respectively. The results showed that a H2/N2 ratio above 3 may be achieved under autothermal conditions (ER = 0.13), which confirms the potential of the biomass pyrolysis and in-line air–steam reforming process for the sustainable production of ammonia. In fact, this innovative process allows the production of 558 g NH3 kgbiomass - 1 .