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Feasibility of gasifying mixed plastic waste for hydrogen production and carbon capture and storage

Communications Earth & Environment 2022 63 citations ? Citation count from OpenAlex, updated daily. May differ slightly from the publisher's own count.
Kai Lan, Yuan Yao

Summary

A techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment of gasifying mixed plastic waste for hydrogen production combined with carbon capture and storage found a minimum hydrogen selling price of US$2.26-2.94 per kg, competitive with fossil fuel hydrogen with carbon capture. The analysis supports plastic waste gasification as both an economically viable and climate-beneficial approach to addressing the plastic waste challenge.

Abstract Waste plastic gasification for hydrogen production combined with carbon capture and storage is one technology option to address the plastic waste challenge. Here, we conducted a techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment to assess this option. The minimum hydrogen selling price of a 2000 oven-dry metric ton/day mixed plastic waste plant with carbon capture and storage is US$2.26–2.94 kg −1 hydrogen, which can compete with fossil fuel hydrogen with carbon capture and storage (US$1.21–2.62 kg −1 hydrogen) and current electrolysis hydrogen (US$3.20–7.70 kg −1 hydrogen). An improvement analysis outlines the roadmap for reducing the average minimum hydrogen selling price from US$2.60 to US$1.46 kg −1 hydrogen, which can be further lowered to US$1.06 kg −1 hydrogen if carbon credits are close to the carbon capture and storage costs along with low feedstock cost. The life cycle assessment results show that hydrogen derived from mixed plastic waste has lower environmental impacts than single-stream plastics.

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