Thermodynamic Analysis of Hydrogen Production from Bio-Oil Steam Reforming Utilizing Waste Heat of Steel Slag

(1) Background: The discharged temperature of steel slag is up to 1450 °C, representing heat having a high calorific value. (2) Motivation: A novel technology, integrating bio-oil steam reforming with waste heat recovery from steel slag for hydrogen production, is proposed, and it is demonstrated to be an outstanding method via thermodynamic calculation. (3) Methods: The equilibrium productions of bio-oil steam reforming in steel slag under different temperatures and S/C ratios (the mole ratio of steam to carbon) are obtained by the method of minimizing the Gibbs free energy using HSC 6.0. (4) Conclusions: The hydrogen yield increases first and then decreases with the increasing temperature, but it increases with the increasing S/C. Considering equilibrium calculation and actual application, the optimal temperature and S/C are 706 °C and 6, respectively. The hydrogen yield and hydrogen component are 109.13 mol/kg and 70.21%, respectively, and the carbon yield is only 0.08 mol/kg under optimal conditions. Compared with CaO in steel slag, iron oxides have less effect on hydrogen production from bio-oil steam reforming in steel slag. The higher the basicity of steel slag, the higher the obtained hydrogen yield and hydrogen component of bio-oil steam reforming in steel slag. It is demonstrated that appropriately decreasing iron oxides and increasing basicity could promote the hydrogen yield and hydrogen component of bio-oil steam reforming that utilizes steel slag as a heat carrier during the industrial application.