Energy and environmental assessment of hydrogen from biomass sources: challenges and perspectives

Hydrogen is considered as one of the pillars of European decarbonisation strategy, boosting a novel concept of energy system in line with the EU’s commitment to achieve clean energy transition and reach the European Green Deal carbon neutrality goals by 2050. Hydrogen from biomass sources can be considered as a ready alternative to integrate the electrolysis at large-scale production. Biomass-derived hydrogen can be produced either from thermochemical pathways (i.e. pyrolysis, liquefaction, and gasification) or from biological routes (i.e. direct or indirect-biophotolysis, biological water–gas shift reaction, photo- and dark-fermentation). The paper reviews several production pathways to produce hydrogen from biomass or biomass-derived sources (biogas, liquid bio-intermediates, sugars) and provides an exhaustive review of the most promising technologies towards commercialization. While some pathways are still at low technology readiness level, others such as the steam bio-methane reforming and biomass gasification are ready for an immediate market uptake. The various production pathways are evaluated in terms of energy and environmental performances, highlighting the limits and barriers of the available LCA studies. The paper shows that hydrogen production technologies from biomass appears today to be an interesting option, almost ready to constitute a complementing option to electrolysis.

BUFFI Marco;  PRUSSI Matteo;  SCARLAT Nicolae; 

2022-10-03

PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

JRC127167

0961-9534 (online),   

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0961953422002185?via%3Dihub,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC127167,   

10.1016/j.biombioe.2022.106556 (online),