Safety Aspects in the Production and Separation of Hydrogen from Biomass

Tecnalia is working in the development of gasification technology for the production of hydrogen from biomass. Biomass is an abundant and disperse renewable energy source that can be important for the production of hydrogen. The development of hydrogen system from biomass requires multifaceted studies on hydrogen production systems, hydrogen separation methods and hydrogen safety aspects. Steam gasification of biomass produces a syngas with high hydrogen content, but this syngas requires a post-treatment to clean and to separate the hydrogen. As a result of this analysis, Tecnalia has defined a global process for the production, cleaning, enrichment and separation of hydrogen from the syngas produced from biomass gasification. But, besides the technical aspects, safety considerations affecting all the described processes have been identified. For that reason, it is being developed a procedure to establish the technical requirements and the recommended practices to ensure the highest level of safety in the production and handing of hydrogen.