Carbonization and Gasification of Cow‐Dung and Fe₃O₄ Nanoparticles at Different Operating Conditions for Hydrogen Production

Abstract

Cow dung is an abundant agricultural by‐product that poses disposal challenges. Converting this waste into a valuable energy resource aligns with sustainable waste management practices and contributes to a circular economy. This research aims at Cow dung disposal by carbonization and gasification for hydrogen generation and maximizes it by optimizing the process parameters. In the pyrolysis‐carbonization process, the influence of temperature on cow dung and its biochar characteristics was initially investigated. On the cow dung feedstock, different operating temperatures at about 400, 500, and 600 °C and response times of about 30, 60, and 120 min were tested. With CD450 as the feedstock, the gas concentrations and hydrogen yield were around 62 vol% and 0.69 m3 kg−1, respectively, for longer reaction times. Similar to this, the gas concentration and yield value for hydrogen at 600 °C gasification temperature is around 64 vol% and 0.91 m3 kg−1. Cow dung is evidently acceptable for larger hydrogen production at higher gasification temperatures and reaction times when the carbonization temperature is 450 °C. In addition, when compared to feedstock without adding nanoparticles, including Fe3O4 nanoparticles may increase the hydrogen concentration and yield by around 13.5 % and 4.21 %, respectively.