Indian Journal of Science and Technology
DOI: 10.17485/ijst/2018/v11i14/121767
Year: 2018, Volume: 11, Issue: 14, Pages: 1-8
Original Article
L. Laguna1 , M. Castro1, D. Cassiani1, J. Leon-Pulido2 and A. D. Gonzalez-Delgado3*
1 Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Cartagena, Cartagena, Bolivar, Colombia; [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
2 Chemical Engineering Program, Faculty of Engineering, EAN University, Bogota, Colombia; [email protected]
3 Nanomaterials and Computer Aided Process Engineering Research Group (NIPAC), Chemical Engineering Department, University of Cartagena, Cartagena, Bolivar, Colombia; [email protected]
*Author for correspondence
A. D. Gonzalez-Delgado,
Nanomaterials and Computer Aided Process Engineering Research Group (NIPAC), Chemical Engineering Department, University of Cartagena, Cartagena, Bolivar, Colombia; [email protected]
Background: The high world production of African palm oil has received major concern because of the amount of residual biomass generated during this process, which can be used to obtain high value products. Objectives: This work is focused on exergy analysis of production process of hydrogen from Empty Fruit Bunches (EFB) using direct gasification and PSA purification technology. Methods/Analysis: Physical energy was calculated using thermodynamic properties of the mixture and chemical energy was determined according to exergy of individual components reported in literature. Irreversibility’s were calculated for each process stage providing information about focus of improvement. In addition, sensibility analysis was carried out to identify the effect of heat in gas-solid separation stage on total efficiency of this system. Findings: It was found that 24.66 t/h of EFB can produce 1.138 t/h of hydrogen with a global exergy efficiency of 32.53%. The stages that exhibited highest irreversibility’s were liquid separation and gassolid separation with 54% and 40% of contribution to total destroyed exergy, respectively. Novelty/Improvement: This research offered an improved alternative to produce hydrogen from wastes of African palm oil industry by reducing exergy of waste when PSA technology is implemented instead of conventional purification with selexol.
Keywords: Exergy, Empty Fruit Bunches, Hydrogen, Indirect Gasification, PSA Technology
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