HYRON—An Installation to Produce High Purity Hydrogen and Soft Iron Powder from Cellulose Waste

The paper aims to describe a new technology of producing a gaseous mixture of type H(2) + CO from cellulose waste that generates high purity hydrogen, without using technical oxygen. The physico-chemical process takes place in an installation designed and built for this purpose, namely HYRON, whose scheme and functionality are presented in the article, as well. The process relies on natural decomposition of cellulose waste into H(2), CO, CO(2) and water vapor, as a result of overheating. In subsidiary, the HYRON installation allows producing soft iron powder, with very low carbon content, from shredded iron ore, by using part of the obtained hydrogen as reducing agent. The chemical reactions underlying the gasification and redox processes, as well as the design approach of the various parts of the HYRON plant, are described in the article at length. The experimental tests made with the installation prototype (after proper calibration) showed that the resulted hydrogen had a purity of at least 99%, while the soft iron powder had over 88% pure iron in the composition. After a short economical analysis, it turned out that the costs of such products are reasonable.