Development and evaluation of an electro-Fenton-based integrated hydrogen production and wastewater treatment plant coupled with the solar and electrodialysis units

Abstract

The development of plants for the simultaneous production of green energy and clean water, in addition to improving the energy system performance, can facilitate the achievement of sustainable development. Meanwhile, hydrogen is one of the promising fuels that can overcome the intermittent penalties of renewable energy sources. In addition, due to environmental restrictions, the industry is forced to effectively treat wastewater for reuse. This article describes the evaluation of an economic model and optimization of an integrated hydrogen production and wastewater treatment plant based on an electro-Fenton process (EFP)-based photoelectrochemical stack (PES), a solar unit, and an electrodialysis unit. The wastewater supplied to the plant is the effluent of a textile factory. In addition, a concentrating photovoltaic thermal collector (CPVT) has been used as a solar unit in the plant. In the offered plant, the electrodialysis unit is able to produce the required alkaline and acid of the PES unit as well as desalinated water. The developed economic model is based on estimating the cost of hydrogen production per kilogram of hydrogen output (i.e., Levelized Cost of Hydrogen, LCOH) on a large scale plant (1072 kg H2/day). In this regard, approximately 230 m3/day of wastewater from the textile factory is treated. Relying on the proposed process can minimize the external chemical requirements of the hydrogen production and wastewater treatment plant. The value of LCOH for the planned plant was estimated to be 5.16 USD/kgH2. However, under the developed optimization, the LCOH value can be declined by almost 7.6%. According to calculations, the profitability of the wastewater treatment process can be approximately 0.082 M USD per year. It was also found that, the value of LCOH exhibits the most sensitivity to variations in operating capacity factor and the least sensitivity to variations in utilities consumption rate. A sensitivity analysis is also developed to identify effective solutions in evaluating the economic performance of the planned plant.