Electricity generation from hydrogen is a highly convenient alternative to incumbent fossil fuels electricity generation plants and is made possible either through fuel cells, internal combustion engines, or turbines. Fuel cells show the best theoretical yield due to the fact that, even though constrained by Thermodynamics’ laws, they are not subject to limitations affecting thermal cycles when exchanging heat from/to high and low temperature reservoirs, respectively. Even if direct hydrogen production from renewable sources is the most desirable option, its current state-of-theart does not allow implementation at an industrial scale. Integration of electrolyzers into windfarms and solar plants are nowadays at a demonstration stage. On the other hand, biomass is a renewable energy source and can be utilized, after adequate treatments, to produce H2-rich compounds, such as hydrocarbons or alcohols. Many of them may undergo reforming. Reforming is a well-known process which has been used for more than a century to obtain hydrogen from a variety of substances. Remarkably, obtaining electricity by fuel cells from fossil fuels through reforming is more efficient, in theory, than direct using of fossil fuels in turbine-based power generation plants [1]. This fact closes the circle about the convenience of designing a reliable electricity generation system composed of a fuel processor coupled to a fuel cell capable of transforming H2-rich compounds into electricity.

Trabajo presentado en la European Hydrogen Energy Conference - EHEC, celebrada en Sevilla (España) del 12 al 14 de mayo de 2014.

Financial support from Comunidad de Madrid (DIVERCELCM, S2009/ENE-1475) is gratefully acknowledged.

Peer Reviewed