Hydrogen production from organic wastes or biomass of plants and animals is one of the main candidate methods to replace fossil energy in the future. Scientists from the school of basic sciences of the Federal Institute of technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, have developed a new method of photothermal decomposition of biomass, which can produce not only valuable syngas, but also recycled biochar. The study was published in the 25th issue of the journal chemical science. In this method, the researchers used a xenon lamp for flash pyrolysis. Xenon lamps are usually used to cure metal inks for printing electronic products. The white flash of this lamp provides high-power energy and short pulses to promote photothermal chemical reactions. This flash technology can be used for biomass from different sources: banana peel, corn cob, orange peel, coffee bean and coconut shell. All these biomass are first dried at 105 ℃ for 24 hours, and then crushed and sieved into fine powder. The powder is then placed in a stainless steel reactor with standard glass windows. The xenon lamp flashes and the whole conversion process is completed in a few milliseconds. "Each kilogram of dry biomass can produce about 100 liters of hydrogen and 330 grams of biochar, equivalent to 33% of the mass of the original dried banana peel," the researchers said The calculated energy result of this method is 4.09 MJ dry biomass per kilogram. The highlight of this method is that its final products hydrogen and solid biochar are very valuable. Hydrogen can be used as a green fuel, while biochar can be buried and used as fertilizer or to make electrodes. (Xinhua News Agency)