Plastic-to-energy: Process and economic–environmental assessment of a recycling technology

Abstract

Plastic waste becomes a major global concern as amounts of plastic waste are rising every year. To solve this problem, various recycling methods of plastic waste have been introduced including a waste-to-energy (WTE). Adopting plastic waste as feed source to WTE process has advantages but it accompanies economic and environmental issues followed by flue gas emission and energy generation efficiency. Therefore, this study developed an integrated assessment considering environmental threat and economic feasibility of targeting plastic waste as WTE fuel while maximizing net present value (NPV). A recycling method with WTE was proposed developing a power plant producing electricity which is based on plastic calorific value and a case study considering flue gas components. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis identified variables that could influence the economic aspects of the process. As results, the FO cases, which secures residual heat through additional combustion reaction as a flue gas treatment method and generates electricity, had positive NPVs of 20.55, 19.90, 19.39, 18.93, and 18.50 million USD, respectively. Furthermore, sensitivity analysis indicates that the cost of electricity is the main contributor of NPV.