Heat integration study on biomass gasification plant for hydrogen production

Abstract

The world is facing global warming crisis and environmental problem due to usage of fossil fuels as major energy source. Therefore, the potential of hydrogen as an alternative, sustainable, renewable source of clean energy is highly regarded. This project aimed to develop a process simulation model of a heat-integrated flowsheet for a biomass gasification plant for hydrogen production using ASPEN PLUS software. Heat integration study has been performed on the plant flowsheet using pinch analysis and was carried out in SPRINT, The University of Manchester Process Integration Software. The minimum temperature difference was set to be 10 K. Based on the study, it was found that the minimum hot utilities required was 0.1642 kW while the minimum cold utilities required was 0.0545 kW. The maximum heat recovery from the process was 0.8413 kW. Using problem table algorithm, the pinch temperature was determined to be at 628.5°C. Three heat exchangers were proposed in the heat exchanger network design. Calculations recorded savings of approximately 72% in hot utilities and 88% in cold utilities via the heat integration analysis. © 2011 Asian Network for Scientific Information.