INSTITUTUL NAŢIONAL DE CERCETARE DEZVOLTARE PENTRU TEHNOLOGII IZOTOPICE SI MOLECULARE Str. Donat 67-103, 400293, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Tel: +40-264-584037; Fax: +40-264-420042 Email: itim@itim-cj.ro, web: www.itim-cj.ro

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design by MM

Summary

Demand for hydrogen (H₂) will grow up in the next decades due to the technological advancements in fuel cell industry which permit its transformation in electricity and heat without generating polluting gases. At present, almost 95% of the world’s hydrogen is being produced from fossil fuel based feedstock. A more environmental friendly alternative is to replace fossil fuels by biofuels as raw materials for hydrogen production. Biomass is renewable and, although carbon dioxide is still produced, it may be recycled to new biomolecules by photosynthesis, resulting a carbon neutral cycle. An even more economical approach would be the hydrogen production from bio-fuels wastes.

The main objective of this project is to develop a laboratory scale technology and experimental set-up to produce hydrogen by steam reforming of hydroxylic compounds resulted as wastes in biomass processing or prepared from wastes of biomass. The main problem in the hydrogen production from glycerol wastes resulted in biodiesel fabrication process is the presence of impurities in crude glycerol which (i) impede the performance of the catalyst and (ii) cause a severe catalyst deactivation. Our project proposes two approaches to overcome these problems: (1) to establish an economically viable method to partially purify the crude glycerol and (2) to test and find new multicomponent catalysts based on Ni with better activity and resistance to deactivation. A catalytic technology for hydrogen production from biofuel wastes and an experimental set-up at laboratory scale will be provided at the end of the project.

The proposed project has strong interdisciplinary character which: (i) combines in a coherent manner knowledge from various fields: chemistry, heterogeneous catalysis, chemical reaction engineering, (ii) connects the fundamental and applicative research from National Institutes (CO and P2) and Universities (P1) with research developed by economical entities (P3) and by end-users of developed technology (P4).