Hydrogen production reaction with a metal oxide catalyst in high pressure high temperature water

Abstract

Hydrogen production from biomass was attempted in high pressure high temperature water at 573 K by adopting partial oxidation to increase the yield of H2 via CO production in the presence of ZnO. The results revealed that an addition of H2O2 as an oxidant to the reaction of glucose and sugarcane bagasse brought about the trend of increasing the yields of H2, CO, and CO2. However, the sensitivity of H2 yield on H2O2 amount was different from those of CO and CO2, namely the excess amount of H2O2 tends to decrease the H2 yield with giving a maximum at a certain H2O2 amount. These indicated that the controllability of partial oxidation would be a key factor for maximizing the H2 yield through biomass conversion by partial oxidative gasification in high pressure high temperature water © 2008 IOP Publishing Ltd.