An overview of hydrogen production from biogas

Abstract

Today, hydrogen is mainly produced by natural gas through thermo-chemical processes. Renewable hydrogen production has increased its importance due to the increase in the pure hydrogen demand, depletion in the fossil fuel reserves, and global environmental and energy issues. In this regard, biogas obtained from biomass by anaerobic digestion or organic matter fermentation processes could be an alternative resource for hydrogen production. Different reforming processes can be selected for this purpose depending on the composition of biogas, availability of investment, required hydrogen purity, and the amount of desired hydrogen. In this chapter, different chemical reforming processes that can be used to produce hydrogen are first presented in detail. Then, the considerations for producing hydrogen from biogas reforming technologies are discussed. The literature review related to hydrogen production from biogas is also presented. Finally, membrane reactor, which provides both hydrogen production and hydrogen separation in the same reactor, is introduced as an alternative route for hydrogen production from biogas.