Feasibility Study for Production of Hydrogen from Agricultural Solid Residue with Reference to Malaysia Using ASPEN Plus Simulation

© 2018, Springer Nature B.V. A technical and feasibility assessment has been conducted for gasification of solid agricultural residue to produce hydrogen in Malaysia. The availability and current technologies for using biomass has been reviewed. Flow sheet for the process has been conceptualized and the material and energy balances for the process along with a plant-wide simulation using the software ASPEN Plus have been undertaken. Powdered Nickle Oxide (NIO-B) has been proposed as catalyst to give approximately 95% purity. Furthermore, the economic analyses worst, base and best financial scenarios have been done and in all cases, the rates of investment (ROI) analysis have been undertaken. From the economic analysis, it has been observed that the total estimated cost for a base scenario, the plant would be USD $52,413,276 for an annual feed rate of 241,938,900 kg. Based on current market of hydrogen and carbon dioxide the payback period for the base case plant would be 1.51 years with the total annual profit of USD $11,045,497.79, which corresponds to a ROI of 12.43%