An integrated system for clean hydrogen production from municipal solid wastes

Abstract

This paper undertakes a comprehensive case study of utilizing municipal solid waste (MSW) collected from thirty-seven different local municipalities and gasified in a gasification plant. The plant is considered to have a 200 ton/h MSW capacity available in the City of Istanbul, Turkey for potential hydrogen production. A thermodynamic analysis of the proposed system is carried out, and its system energy and exergy efficiencies are assessed. The present results indicate that energy and exergy efficiencies for hydrogen production are 57% and 55%, respectively. After the gasification process, the molar percentages of the obtained syngas components are calculated as 19.57 vol%, 18.5 vol%, 0.4 vol%, 7.97 vol%, 7.98 vol% and 45.52 vol% for CO, H2, CH4, CO2, H2O and N2, respectively. These results are compared to experimental and theoretical studies in the literature, and good agreement is achieved with previous studies. In this plant, the waste may be converted to the hydrogen of 3.014 kg/s via a gasifier, cyclone, catalytic reactor, shift reactors at high-temperature (i.e., 643 K) and low-temperature (i.e., 473 K), and pressure swing adsorption.