Title:
Sunlight Ancient and Modern: the Relative Energy Efficiency of Hydrogen from Coal and Current Biomass

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dc.contributor.advisor Realff, Matthew J.
dc.contributor.author Zhang, Ling en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Jones, Christopher
dc.contributor.committeeMember Teja, Amyn
dc.contributor.committeeMember White, David
dc.contributor.department Chemical Engineering en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2005-03-01T19:23:02Z
dc.date.available 2005-03-01T19:23:02Z
dc.date.issued 2004-08-23 en_US
dc.description.abstract The significance of hydrogen production is increasing as fossil fuels are being depleted and energy security is of increasing importance to the United States. Furthermore, its production offers the potential to alleviate concerns regarding global warming and air pollution. In this thesis we focused on examining the efficiency of hydrogen production from current biomass compared to that from fossil fuel coal. We explored the efficiencies of maximum hydrogen production from biomass and from coal under current technology, namely coal gasification and biomass pyrolysis, together with following-up technologies such as steam reforming (SR). Bio-oil, product from pyrolysis and precursor for steam reforming, is hard to define. We proposed a simulation tool to estimate the pyrolytic bio-oil composition from various biomasses. The results helped us understand the accuracy that is needed for bio-oil composition prediction in the case it is converted to hydrogen. Hydrogen production is energy intensive. Therefore, heat integration is necessary to raise the overall thermodynamic efficiencies for both coal gasification and biomass pyrolysis. The results showed that considering the ultimate energy source, sunlight, about 6-fold more sunlight would be required for the coal to hydrogen than that for biomass to hydrogen. The main difference is in the efficiency of conversion of the ancient biomass to coal and therefore, for modern mankind, this loss has already been incurred. en_US
dc.description.degree M.S. en_US
dc.format.extent 865023 bytes
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/4786
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Biomass en_US
dc.subject Coal
dc.subject Pyrolysis
dc.subject Gasification
dc.subject Steam reformation
dc.subject Hydrogen production
dc.subject Sunlight
dc.subject Heat integration
dc.subject.lcsh Biomass energy en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Coal gasification en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Hydrogen as fuel en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Pyrolysis en_US
dc.title Sunlight Ancient and Modern: the Relative Energy Efficiency of Hydrogen from Coal and Current Biomass en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Thesis
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Realff, Matthew J.
local.contributor.corporatename School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 6cfa2dc6-c5bf-4f6b-99a2-57105d8f7a6f
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
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