Process variable optimization on hydrogen production from sawdust mill of Paraserianthes falcataria wood with one stage gasifcation process using promoted calcium hydroxide absorption

Production of hydrogen from biomass waste using single-stage gasifcation is an innovative method, in which gasifcation, water
gas shift conversion and CO2 separation processes are carried out in one reactor so that the product gas leaving the reactor has
a partially large composition is hydrogen gas. This process presents several advantages when compared to the conventional
method, where hydrogen formation is carried out through several stages that occur in more than one reactor, making it more
complicated and economically unproftable. In addition an innovative method on how to make the absorption of CO2 gas more
efective by adding PEG surfactant to the absorbent solution as a promoter is presented. The biomass used in this research is
sawdust wood. The composition of H2 as well the corresponding yield were optimized under constant operating conditions,
namely gasifcation temperature 400o C and holding time 15 min for surfactant concentration (800–1500 ppm) and the ratio of
absorbent solution/biomass weight (1.5–2.0 ml/g). A central composite design (CCD) model utilizing Statistica 6 software was
applied. The optimization results show the optimum ratio of absorbent solution/biomass is 1.786±0.004 while for the surfactant
concentration, the results were obtained for 1200 ppm (for H2 composition) and 1250 ppm (for yield). At the optimum conditions
H2 content was 30.82% and the yield was 2.937 mmol H2/g of biomass. The surfactant concentration variable has a greater efect
than the ratio variable from the % H2 side, while from the yield side the efect is not signifcantly diferent.