Participation at the FILTECH 2015

Titel:

LONG-TERM EXPERIMENT FOR THE SEPARATION OF “GREEN”
HYDROGEN FROM BIOMASS GASIFICATION BY A POLYMER
MEMBRANE

Authors:

Dipl.-Ing. David Konlechner*, Ass. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Michael Harasek, Univ. Prof.
Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Hermann Hofbauer
Vienna University of Technology, Institute of Chemical Engineering

Dr.-Ing. Marius Hackel
Air Liquide Forschung und Entwicklung GmbH, Frankfurt Research & Technology

Dr. Ed Sanders
Delaware Research and Technology Center

Dr. Klaus Bosch
Energie Burgenland AG

Abbstract:

Hydrogen is seen as an important part of a lasting energy mix for the future. The Institute of Chemical Engineering at the Vienna University of Technology is operating an experimental setup for the separation of sustainable hydrogen from product gas of an industrial biomass gasification plant located at Oberwart, Austria. The overall concept follows the polygeneration concept which has the aim to produce valuable products on an economic basis and to utilize remaining by-products, for example in a gas engine.

With the installed experimental process chain hydrogen is upgraded to fuel cell quality. The current paper has its focus on the membrane separation step which is a key step within the implemented process chain. The overall goal of the research work is to develop the basics for a simple industrially feasible CO2 neutral hydrogen production process using biomass as raw material.

Gas permeation is a state of art technology which shows its performance in various applicable fields. The novel approach is now its application for the hydrogen separation from renewable resources. At the current case, product gas from an industrial biomass gasification plant is taken for the experiments. Within the executed work, the long-term reliability of the process and the used membrane material is evaluated. Therefore, the pressure of the pretreated gas is increased to 13 barg by a piston compressor. By using a single-stage polymer membrane module provided by Air LiquideTM it is possible to increase the hydrogen concentration from 35-40 %(v/v) up to 80 %(v/v). The experimental setup is operated at stable process conditions for about 20 days without interruption. Within that period no decrease of the performance is seen.

Keywords:

Biomass Gasification, Gas Permeation, Hollow Fiber Membrane, Hydrogen, Membrane Separation, Polymeric Membrane