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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS 

VOL. 56, 2017 

A publication of 

The Italian Association 
of Chemical Engineering 
Online at www.aidic.it/cet 

Guest Editors: Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Peng Yen Liew, Wai Shin Ho, Jeng Shiun Lim 
Copyright © 2017, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., 

ISBN 978-88-95608-47-1; ISSN 2283-9216 

Effects of Purification on the Hydrogen Production in Biomass 
Gasification Process

Muhammad Bilal Muslim, Suriyati Saleh, Noor Asma Fazli Abdul Samad* 
Faculty of Chemical & Natural Resources Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Lebuhraya Tun Razak, 26300 
Gambang, Pahang, Malaysia 
asmafazli@ump.edu.my 

Energy from renewable sources such as biomass are expected to complement the energy derived from fossil 
fuel resources due to its abundant reserves and relatively low price compared with other energy sources. These 
biomass wastes are used to produce hydrogen gas via gasification process. In order to study the gasification 
process, there have been substantial researches involving gasification using process simulation studies where 
the most commonly used is Aspen Plus software. The researcher basically often uses different types of gasifier 
in their studies where the most preferred in the literature are fluidized bed gasifier and downdraft fixed bed 
gasifier. The previous research did not focus on hydrogen gas purification produced from biomass gasification 
process.  The objective of this research is to evaluate the performance of biomass gasification purification on 
the hydrogen production. The biomass used in this paper is oil palm frond since it is the most abundant waste 
produced compared to another oil palm wastes. Both of the fluidized bed gasifier and downdraft fixed bed 
gasifier models are developed in the Aspen Plus and the performance of the gasifier is determined by focusing 
on the total amount of hydrogen gas. Based on the gasification-purification simulation results obtained, the 
fluidized bed reactor produces approximately 7.95 % amount of hydrogen gas compare to only 6.75 % hydrogen 
gas for fixed bed reactor. 

1. Introduction

Oil palm frond is one of the main biomass wastes in Malaysia. In 2009, the amount of oil palm frond waste is 
counted up to 44.8 × 106 t and it has created a major disposal problem (Ng et al., 2011). Basically, oil palm frond 
waste is usually retained in the plantations and left to decompose naturally for nutrient replacement or mulching 
purposes. The high potential value of this waste to be used for more lucrative purposes is often being ignored. 
Less than 10 % of the biomass wastes have been used for niche downstream application such as gasification 
(Sun et al., 2014). Biomass gasification process can be applied as one of the solutions in order to utilize of oil 
palm frond waste. 
Biomass gasification is known as a process of incomplete combustion of biomass resulting in production of 
synthesis gas consisting of carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), hydrogen (H2) and traces of methane 
(CH4). The generated syngas is then applied as a gaseous fuel or serves as an input for fuel cell to produce 
electricity and heat (Sosnowska et al., 2014). The two most common gasifiers used in the gasification process 
can be classified into two categories namely fixed bed and fluidized bed. For fixed bed gasifier, it can be divided 
into updraft (counter-current) and downdraft (co-current) gasifiers which is based on the direction of the flow of 
the gasifying agent (Basu, 2006). For updraft gasifier, the biomass moves downwards through a bed, while 
reacting with the gasifying agent that moves in the opposite direction (Konda et al., 2012). Meanwhile for 
downdraft gasifier, the gasifying agent moves downwards through the bed in the same direction as the biomass 
feedstock (Figueroa et al., 2013). The main advantage of this gasifier is its ability to produce syngas with low 
tar content and it does not require extensive clean-up compare to updraft gasifier which requires extensive 
clean-up to remove high amount of tar before it can be used in the synthesis applications (Kosov et al., 2015). 
Meanwhile bubbling fluidized bed and circulating fluidized bed gasifiers are the two main types of fluidized bed 
reactor, which usually operate at temperature between 700 - 900 °C. In the bubbling fluidized bed gasifier, the 
gasifying agent is injected at the bottom of the reactor at a velocity equal to the minimum fluidization velocity to 

 

   

DOI: 10.3303/CET1756250

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

Please cite this article as: Muslim M.B., Saleh S., Samad N.A.F.A., 2017, Effects of purification on the hydrogen production in biomass 
gasification process, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 56, 1495-1500  DOI:10.3303/CET1756250   

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ensure intense mixing of the hot bed material (Ruoppolo et al., 2013). The operation of circulating fluidized bed 
gasifier is almost similar to the bubbling fluidized bed gasifier, with the main difference is the velocity of the 
gasifying agent usually exceeds the minimum fluidization point. Due to this high velocity, an entrainment of the 
particles in the product gas occurs. The particles are separated in a cyclone at the exit of the reactor and the 
bed material is returned to the reactor (Basu, 2006). The circulating fluidized bed provides lower heat exchange 
compared to the bubbling fluidized bed gasifier and thus not suitable for a wide range of biomass particle sizes. 
Bubbling fluidized bed gasifier with air is a relatively simple process for syngas production.  
The syngas produced from gasification process can be used to produce energy by using fuel cells. Syngas 
needs to undergo hydrogen purification process because some syngas such CO is poisoning to the Proton 
Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) and it needs to be lower than 10 ppm or it can cause serious damage 
to the PEMFC membrane layer. There are 3 categories of hydrogen purification which each category has 
specific techniques and methods. There are: 1) Chemical (catalytic purification), 2) Physical (metal hydride 
separation, pressure swing adsorption, cryogenic separation) and 3) Selective diffusion (noble metal membrane 
diffusion, polymer membrane diffusion, solid polymer electrolyte cells). Catalytic purification has been known as 
the best method since the purity of outcome hydrogen is about 99.99 % and the pure hydrogen act as the best 
input for PEMFC. Catalytic purification removes oxygen by reaction with hydrogen to form water, and carbon 
monoxide by oxidation or methanation. This technique is used to upgrade relatively pure hydrogen produced 
and reduce the concentration of CO since CO can cause serious poisoning to PEMFC membrane. The main 
methods of catalytic purification are as follows: i) Purification with hydrogen selective membrane, ii) CO 
methanation, iii) Preferential oxidation (PROX) of CO. For the application of small-scale fuel processor, the 
selective membrane purification, CO methanation, and the CO-PROX have been considered to be promising. 
Catalytic preferential oxidation of CO (CO-PROX) is one of the most suitable methods of purification of H2 
because of high CO conversion rate at low temperature range meanwhile the PROX of CO is a reaction to 
convert CO in a H2-rich gas mixture to CO2 with minimal H2 consumption which all these are preferable for 
PEMFC operating conditions. This method has the potential to increase the amount of hydrogen in the end of 
the operation. 
Modelling and simulation is progressively becoming a useful tool to investigate the process parameters of the 
biomass gasification process (Wahid et al., 2016). In terms of the modelling and simulation, Aspen Plus process 
simulator is widely applied to represent the desired gasification process. In the earlier work carried out by Nikoo 
and Mahinpey (2008), they used Aspen Plus to simulate pine sawdust gasification in fluidized bed reactor while 
in the work of Figueroa et al. (2013), they investigated steam gasification process of sugarcane bagasse in a 
fixed bed reactor. The previous work just focusing on biomass gasification process only without trying to 
investigate the purification of hydrogen. There is no attempt to compare different gasifiers for hydrogen 
production in the literature. The objective of this study is to investigate and compare the performance of 
hydrogen purification on bubbling fluidized bed gasifier and downdraft fixed bed gasifier employing oil palm frond 
as biomass input for hydrogen production. Here the process design flow sheet for fluidized bed and fixed bed 
are developed in the Aspen Plus. Then the performances for both gasifiers are analysed and compared in terms 
of total production of syngas and amount of hydrogen produced after catalytic purification process. 

2. Modelling Approach 

In this section modelling approach, has been presented in detail, including (i) all the process assumptions used 
to simplify the physical problem; (ii) properties of the model; and (iii) process modelling using Aspen Plus 
simulator. Aspen Plus is full-featured software, used by many professional researchers to simulate a model and 
predict the performance of processes without complex calculations (Nikoo and Mahinpey, 2008). 

2.1 Process Assumptions 

In this study, there are few assumptions need to be considered in the modelling process. The assumptions used 
for both gasification models are (i) the processes are in the isothermal and steady state conditions; (ii) the 
composition of char consists only carbon, void and ash; (iii) all chemical reactions occur under equilibrium state 
in the gasifier and there is no pressure loss; (iv) all the particles are assumed in the spherical shape, uniform 
size and the average diameter remains constant during the gasification meaning that no species concentration 
or thermal gradients exist within the particle; (v) the syngas produced are ideal gases state, including H2, CO, 
CO2, steam (H2O) and CH4; (vi) all hydrogen and oxygen contained in the biomass is assumed to be released 
during devolatilization. 

2.2 Models Properties 

Both of the fluidized and fixed bed models are simulated as a stand-alone model using the same operating 
conditions which consists of the feed flow rate of 10 kg/h, temperature of 700 °C and pressure of 1 bar. For 

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gasifying agent, both models have the same air flow rate of 10 kg/h. However only fluidized bed has additional 
gasifying agent which is steam with flow rate of 1.8 kg/h. The Redlich-Kwong-Soave (RKS) cubic equation of 
state with Boston-Mathias alpha function (RKS-BM) is used as thermo-physical property method in both 
gasification processes. In this study, oil palm frond is used as a feed for both gasification process based on the 
ultimate and proximate analysis as shown in Table 1. The enthalpy and density models selected for both feed 
and ash are non-conventional components. In this study, feed (oil palm frond) is defined as nonconventional 
components based on their ultimate and proximate analysis as shown in Table 1. The reactions of both 
gasification processes are shown below: 

Table 1: Proximate and ultimate analysis of oil palm frond (Konda et al., 2012) 

Proximate analysis (wt.% dry basis) Ultimate analysis (wt.% dry basis) 
Moisture content 6.3 C 42.55 
Volatile Matter 51.3 H 5.48 
Fixed Carbon 41 N 2.18 
Ash 6.3 S 0.20 
  O 43.38 
 

C + O2 → CO2  (1) 

C + 0.5O2 →CO  (2) 

C + CO2 ↔2CO   (3) 

C + H2O ↔ CO + H2   (4) 

C + 2H2 →CH4  (5) 

CO + H2O ↔CO2 + H2   (6) 

H2 + 0.5O2 →H2O  (7) 

CH4 + H2O ↔CO + 3H2  (8) 

CH4 + 2H2O ↔CO2 + 4H2  (9) 

CO + H2O ↔CO2 + H2  (10) 

CO + 0.5O2 →CO2  (11) 

2.3 Process Modelling using Aspen Plus 

Aspen Plus has been selected as a simulation tool to represent the gasification process. The decomposition of 
the process into its constituent elements for individual study of performance can be evaluated using Aspen Plus. 
The process characteristics such as flow rates, compositions, temperatures, pressures, properties, equipment 
sizes can be more easily predicted by using analysis techniques. In this work, Aspen Plus is used to develop 
the gasification downdraft fixed bed and bubbling fluidized bed gasifiers with catalytic purification reactor. 

2.3.1 Fixed Bed Gasification Model 

For fixed bed reactor, the main process in the gasification process is classified into four stages which consist of 
the drying of the feed, the decomposition of the feed, char gasification and combustion and separation process. 
The gasification flow sheet for fixed bed reactor is shown in Figure 1. The first stage is the drying of the feed in 
order to remove water content in the feed. Next is the RSTOIC reactor which is used to simulate the 
decomposition of the feed. Here the extent of the reaction (Feed: 0.0555 H2O) is used in the RSTOIC to 
transform some part of the inlet feed to water. When the dry feed enters the RYIELD reactor, the decomposition 
of the feed is taken place and the feed is then converted into the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, 
nitrogen and ash. The decomposed feed and air enter the RGIBBS block and will undergo combustion and 
gasification reaction in the RGIBBS reactor which employing all the reactions from Eq(1) to Eq(9). Subsequently, 
the SEPARATOR block is used in order to separate the ash from the mixture of the syngas. The syngas 
produces from the gasifier model are then entering the hydrogen purification process or CO-PROX. Afterwards 
the syngas will go to HTS (high-temperature water gas shift reactor) and LTS (low temperature water gas shift 
reactor). In the HTS and LTS reactors, the water gas shift reaction between CO and steam occurs as shown in 
Eq(10). The HTS (high-temperature water gas shift reactor) is operated at temperature of 300 °C and the LTS 
(low temperature water gas shift reactor) is operated at temperature of 200 °C. After HTS, the exit CO 

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concentration is expected to be in the range of 2 % to 4 % and 1 % for LTS. The CO-selective oxidation reaction 
(Eq(11) takes place in the preferential oxidation reactor, represented by the unit PROX. This reactor is operated 
at temperature of 150 °C. At this stage, the remaining CO in the H2 feed is reduced to an acceptable level for 
PEMFC applications (less than 10 ppm). 

 

Figure 1: Fixed bed gasification with hydrogen purification flowsheet 

2.3.2 Fluidised Bed Gasification Model 

For fluidised bed, the gasification process basically is classified into 4 stages which consist of decomposition of 
feed, volatile reactions, char gasification and the separation of gas and solid. The Aspen Plus flow sheet 
gasification process using fluidised bed is shown in Figure 2. Based on Figure 2, the first stage of the gasification 
process is represented by RYIELD which is the yield reactor. After the biomass enters the yield reactor, it is 
decomposed and converted into its components. In the case of oil palm frond, the atoms of carbon, hydrogen, 
oxygen, sulphur, nitrogen and ash were converted into their specific yield for each syngas by using the yield 
distribution based on the ultimate analysis. For volatile reactions, it involves two units which are the 
SEPARATOR and RGIBBS. The SEPARATOR will separate the products from the yield reactor into volatile 
matter and solids. The amount of volatile matter is specified in Aspen Plus based on the information from Table 
1. The complete separation of volatile matter from SEPARATOR is then fed into to the Gibbs reactor (RGIBBS). 
In the Gibbs reactor, the volatile matter will undergo combustion process and the reaction is assumed to follow 
the Gibbs equilibrium which employing all the Eq(6) to Eq(9). The steam and air will mix with the syngas in the 
MIXER and then undergo char gasification process in the RGIBBS. All the Eq(1) to Eq(9) will take place in the 
process. The syngas product is then separated in the SEPARATOR into gas and solid products. The syngas 
then will undergo catalytic purification as similar as the catalytic purification process in the fixed bed gasification. 

 

Figure 2: Fluidised bed gasification process with hydrogen purification flowsheet 

3. Results and Discussions 

The simulation results of the biomass gasification without purification process are shown in Table 2. Based on 
Table 2, the hydrogen gas produced by fluidised bed (6.69 %) shows more percentage compared to fixed bed 

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reactor (4.91 %). This is due to the presence of steam flow inside of the fluidised bed gasification which 
increases the hydrogen production. The solid fuel particles from biomass are brought into contact with a 
restricted supply of oxygen by feeding them into oxygen or air starved fluidised bed. The fuel particles are quickly 
heated to the bed temperature and undergo rapid drying and pyrolysis (Basu, 2006). Besides, the small amount 
of methane produced (1.36 % for fixed bed and 1.21 % for fluidised bed) also caused by the hydrogasification 
reaction (see Eq(5)) during the gasification. This reaction produces methane, but its amount usually relatively 
low, especially at low pressures, compared to the pyrolysis which produces more amounts of other syngas 
(Karimipour et al., 2012). Some of the methane is decomposed which resulting into the increment of CO2 amount 
as indicated by Eq(8). The higher content value of CO caused by Boudouard reaction which is determined by 
Eq(2). At high temperature, the endergonic reaction will cause more C and CO2 to be converted into CO. The 
fluidised bed reactor provides excellent biomass mixing compared to the fixed bed reactor (Wahid et al., 2016). 
This specification trigger the process inside of the gasification to have high tendency to gain high amount of 
heating value and this is also improved the mass and heat transfer from biomass leading to the more hydrogen 
production. 

Table 2: Comparison amount of syngas (%) between two gasifiers model 

Components Fixed bed Fluidised bed 
CO2 29.17 38.33 
CO 64.56 53.76 
H2 4.91 6.69 
CH4 1.36 1.21 
 

 

Figure 3: Product gas percentages at the outlets of the gasifier, HTS reactor, LTS reactor and PROX reactor 

from (a) fixed bed, (b) fluidised bed 

Figure 3 shows the amount of product gas composition in terms of percentages at the outlets of the gasifier, 
high- and low-temperature water gas shift reactors (HTS and LTS) and a preferential oxidation reactor (PROX) 
from fixed bed and fluidised bed gasifier. The product gases from both biomass gasifier contains high 
percentage of CO which are 64.56 % for fixed bed gasifier and 53.76 % from the fluidised bed gasifier which 
exceeding the allowable limit of 1 % for PEMFC application. The PEMFC performance degrades when CO is 
present in the syngas; this is referred to as CO poisoning. The CO has a strong tendency to be adsorbed into 
catalyst surface on the PEMFC and blocking the active catalyst sites which are required for hydrogen oxidation 
reaction. Since this problem happened, the product gas should undergo catalytic preferential oxidation of CO 
(CO-PROX) flow through HTS and LTS and lastly PROX. The amounts CO2 and H2 gases are then increased 
while the amount of CO is decreased when all of these gases went through HTS and LTS. The conversion of 
the CO achieved approximately 96 % to 98 %. This is due to the water gas shift reaction Eq(10) occurs in both 
reactors. The syngas is then fed to the PROX reactor where the O2 and CO underwent partial oxidation which 
produces CO2. Here the CO concentration is reduced to less than 10 ppm and the total hydrogen amount is 
increased from 4.91 % to 6.75 % for fixed bed gasifier. Meanwhile it has been observed that the total hydrogen 
amount is increased from 6.69 % to 8 % for fluidised bed gasifier. It can be concluded that the fluidised bed is 

CO 
 
CO2 
 
H2 
 
CH4 

CO 
 
CO2 
 
H2 
  
CH4 

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the most effective gasifier compared to fixed bed gasifier for gasification process since its produce more 
hydrogen even after PROX reactor has been implemented to both reactors during the gasification-purification 
process. 

4. Conclusions 

A purification process has been included for downdraft fixed bed gasification and bubbling fluidised bed 
gasification in Aspen Plus. Firstly, the gasification process for both gasifiers are conducted and followed by 
purification of hydrogen steps by using catalytic preferential oxidation of CO (CO-PROX) which consists of high-
temperature water gas shift reactor (HTS), low temperature water gas shift reactor (LTS) and lastly preferential 
oxidation reactor (PROX). For the gasification process, both models are successfully simulated in the Aspen 
Plus and the hydrogen gas produced by bubbling fluidised bed gasifier (6.69 %) is higher to the downdraft fixed 
bed reactor gasifier (4.91 %) using the same operating condition. After the catalytic preferential oxidation of CO 
(CO-PROX) have been applied, the amount of CO for both reactor is reduced to less than 10 ppm and the 
amount of hydrogen is increased to 6.75 % for fixed bed gasifier and 8 % for fluidised bed gasifier. It can be 
concluded that the CO-PROX system is able to increase the amount hydrogen for both of the gasifiers and it is 
also shown that fluidised bed gasifier is the most efficient gasifier in terms of total hydrogen gas produced 
compared to the fixed bed gasifier. 

Acknowledgments  

The financial support from Research Acculturation Collaborative Effort (RACE) Vot Number RDU151301 is 
greatly appreciated. 

References  

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