Improvement of hydrogen production from coal gasification for power generation application

Hydrogen (H
₂
) is considered as a clean source of energy and energy carrier for various applications due to its high energy density. H
₂
can be used in various applications such as; electricity generation, in H
₂
Fuel Cell electric vehicle, in processing and manufacturing industries and most promisingly in energy transportation applications. This leads to increase in demand of H
₂
around the globe. Naturally, H
₂
exists with different hydrocarbons such as; methane (CH
₄
), propane (C
₃
H
₈
), ethane (C
₂
H
₆
) and currently significant part of H
₂
production comes from coal and natural gas. The current system uses gasification to generate H
₂
and emits carbon dioxide (CO
₂
), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and other toxic gases to the environment. Besides, most of the electricity is currently produced from coal fired plants which also contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. This paper presents a coal gasification model in terms of increased H
₂
production and emission reduction. This increased H
₂
can be used in distributed power generation applications. In order to do that the operational conditions of gasification have been investigated including; temperature and gasifying medium. The results showed that, with rising temperature H
₂
production increases from 1.78E-11 kg/hr to 2.21 kg/hr at 2,000°C while CO
₂
emission dropped from 8,364.11 kg/hr to 8,027.21 kg/hr. Furthermore, the steam and air agent is found favourable for higher H
₂
production and reduction in CO
₂
emission. As found, H
₂
production increases up to 734.13 kg/hr and CO
₂
emission declines to 7,210.64 kg/hr. Therefore, the temperature and steam and air agent can significantly improve the coal gasification performance.