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Process optimisation and enviro-economic assessment of carbon-negative hydrogen production from biomass co-gasification

Patel, Pushpraj; Dimitriou, Ioanna; Mondal, Prasenjit; Singh, Omvir; Gupta, Shubhi

Authors

Pushpraj Patel

Prasenjit Mondal

Omvir Singh

Shubhi Gupta



Abstract

Biomass wastes are abundantly available, yet leveraging these resources for large-scale green energy production requires a comprehensive and strategic evaluation. In this study, an environmentally sustainable and economically viable gasification process for generating pure hydrogen gas from waste biomass was developed. Switchgrass was combined with two co-feeds: low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and high ash coal to improve hydrogen production efficiency. Two process configurations for biomass gasification/co-gasification were investigated: (1) baseline scenario without addition of key units towards sustainability, including carbon-capture (CC), waste heat recovery (WHR) and in-plant power & steam generation (PSG), and (2) integrated scenario with the addition of CC, WHR and PSG. The integrated gasification scenario achieved over 99 % hydrogen purity and high carbon capture efficiency, leading to negative carbon emissions of –323.55, −465.84, and −68.28 kg CO2 eq. for biomass, biomass-LDPE and biomass-coal gasification, respectively. Besides this, integrated scenarios also displayed negative emissions in most of the other impact categories like ecotoxicity, acidification, eutrophication and many more. The corresponding net present value (NPV) for biomass, biomass-LDPE and biomass-coal gasification integrated scenario was $69.7 million, $108 million, and $76.4 million, respectively. The results indicate that biomass co-fed with LDPE in integrated gasification scenario represents the most environmentally and economically sustainable case with the highest hydrogen production, lowest environmental emissions and highest economic returns. It was also shown that process energy requirements were the key driver of environmental emissions and production costs. This research provides a comprehensive evaluation framework for waste-to-hydrogen technologies by identifying critical process hotspots and necessary policy measures for large-scale implementation of sustainable hydrogen.

Citation

Patel, P., Dimitriou, I., Mondal, P., Singh, O., & Gupta, S. (2025). Process optimisation and enviro-economic assessment of carbon-negative hydrogen production from biomass co-gasification. Energy Conversion and Management, 323, 119211. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2024.119211

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 26, 2024
Online Publication Date Nov 7, 2024
Publication Date Jan 1, 2025
Deposit Date Nov 22, 2024
Publicly Available Date Nov 8, 2025
Journal Energy Conversion and Management
Print ISSN 0196-8904
Electronic ISSN 2590-1745
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 323
Pages 119211
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2024.119211
Keywords Biomass; Gasification; Hydrogen; Life cycle analysis; Technoeconomic analysis
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/42218358
Publisher URL https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019689042401152X?via%3Dihub