Potential of hydrogen enhanced biofuels

05-04-2020 | Illka Hannula of Finnish research institute VTT is one of the authors of the research on 'Hydrogen enhanced biofuels for transport via fast pyrolysis of biomass: a conceptual assessment".  In the paper, published at Elseviers Energy, he and his co-authors focus on the possibilities of boosting the carbon efficiency of a fast pyrolysis based biofuel process (both thermal and catalytic). The essential result is that with sustainable hydrogen they can achieve up to 61% savings in biomass use, while still producing the same amount of biofuels. It implies however that there is an additional need for electricity to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, as for every megajoule (MJ) of biomass feedstock, 0.65–0.66 MJ of electricity is needed for the electrolyser.

The paper shows however that there are synergy opportunities for integrating hydrogen and biofuels production. Hydrogen may come available to the transport sector in various forms.

The paper is said to be freely available for a period of 50 days, mentioned Hannula on a LinkedIn post of 3rd April 2020. The download is found here.

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