Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Unprecedented efforts are being deployed to develop hydrogen production from bioresources in a circular economy approach, yet their implementation remains scarce. Today’s Challenges are associated with the shortage in the value chain, lack of large-scale production infrastructure, high costs, and low efficiency of current solutions. Herein, we report a hydrogen production route from cellulose pulp, integrating biomass fractionation and gasification in a biorefinery approach. Softwood sawdust undergoes formic acid organosolv treatment to extract cellulose, followed by steam gasification. High-purity hydrogen-rich syngas at a concentration of 56.3 vol% and a yield of 40 g<jats:sub>H2</jats:sub>/kg<jats:sub>cellulose</jats:sub> was produced. Char gasification offers the advantage of producing free-tar syngas reducing cleaning costs and mitigating downstream issues. A comprehensive assessment of mass and energy balance along the hydrogen value chain revealed an efficiency of 26.5% for hydrogen production, with an energy requirement of 111.1 kWh/kg<jats:sub>H2</jats:sub>. Optimizing solvent recovery and valorization of other constituents as added-value products in a biorefinery approach would further improve the process and entice its industrial takeoff.</jats:p>