Chemists have found that the high-power xenon lamps used to solder circuit boards in the electronics industry can be utilized to almost instantly decompose plant biomass into hydrogen, carbon monoxide and pure carbon, Chemistry World reported.
This approach will significantly reduce the cost of biohydrogen production, scientists hope. The results of the study were published in the scientific journal Chemical Science.
“The decomposition of each kilogram of biomass leads to the formation of about one hundred liters of hydrogen and 330 grams of biochar, which is about a third of the original mass of plant remains. In this case, we not only get useful resources, but also fix large amounts of CO2 that plants have absorbed from the atmosphere”, said Bhavna Nagar, a researcher at the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), who participated in the study.
Biofuels are used quite widely, but they are characterized by high production costs and low energy content compared to conventional gasoline. As a rule, it is produced in several stages with the participation of fungi and bacteria. Over the past decades, scientists have developed several methods for converting plant biomass into fuel.
Nagar and her colleagues proposed an alternative method for processing plant materials, which allows them to be used to produce biohydrogen and biochar with minimal energy consumption.
The scientists made the discovery while experimenting with specialized xenon lamps, which are commonly used in the semiconductor industry to solder metal joints on printed circuit boards.
Recently, Swiss chemists also discovered that these devices can be used to quickly and cheaply produce various nanoparticles. This discovery led scientists to the idea that xenon lamps can be used for the photolysis of plant biomass, its rapid decomposition under the influence of high temperatures and light energy.
As the first experiments showed, already existing industrial xenon lamps make it possible to extract a large amount of hydrogen from plant biomass if it is preheated to a temperature of 105 degrees and ground into a fine powder.
In addition to this, about a third of the raw material is converted into biochar, which can be used both as a fuel and as a raw material in various industries.
According to the researchers, a wide variety of plant materials can be decomposed in this way, from banana skins to coconut shells.
Unlike other methods of biomass decomposition, Nagar and her colleagues’ method does not require the use of specialized reactors that maintain high temperatures and high pressure, which reduces the cost of producing hydrogen and coal.
The researchers now hope that future experiments will help them optimize this biomass decomposition technique for industrial use, making it even more attractive to potential investors.