Al-Qadri Ali A, Ahmed Usama, Abdul Jameel Abdul Gani, Zahid Umer, Usman Muhammad, Ahmad Nabeel
Chemical Engineering Department, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen and Energy Storage, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia.
Polymers (Basel). 2022 May 18;14(10):2056. doi: 10.3390/polym14102056.
The global energy demand is expected to increase by 30% within the next two decades. Plastic thermochemical recycling is a potential alternative to meet this tremendous demand because of its availability and high heating value. Polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) are considered in this study because of their substantial worldwide availability in the category of plastic wastes. Two cases were modeled to produce hydrogen from the waste plastics using Aspen Plus. Case 1 is the base design containing three main processes (plastic gasification, syngas conversion, and acid gas removal), where the results were validated with the literature. On the other hand, case 2 integrates the plastic gasification with steam methane reforming (SMR) to enhance the overall hydrogen production. The two cases were then analyzed in terms of syngas heating values, hydrogen production rates, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and process economics. The results reveal that case 2 produces 5.6% more hydrogen than case 1. The overall process efficiency was enhanced by 4.13%. Case 2 reduces the CO specific emissions by 4.0% and lowers the hydrogen production cost by 29%. This substantial reduction in the H production cost confirms the dominance of the integrated model over the standalone plastic gasification model.
预计在未来二十年内，全球能源需求将增长30%。塑料热化学回收因其原料可得性和高热值，是满足这一巨大需求的潜在替代方案。本研究考虑了聚丙烯（PP）和聚乙烯（PE），因为它们在全球塑料废物类别中大量存在。使用Aspen Plus对两个案例进行建模，以从废塑料中制氢。案例1是基础设计，包含三个主要过程（塑料气化、合成气转化和酸性气体去除），其结果已通过文献验证。另一方面，案例2将塑料气化与蒸汽甲烷重整（SMR）相结合，以提高整体制氢量。然后从合成气热值、制氢速率、能源效率、温室气体排放和工艺经济性等方面对这两个案例进行了分析。结果表明，案例2的产氢量比案例1多5.6%。整体工艺效率提高了4.13%。案例2将一氧化碳特定排放量降低了4.0%，并将制氢成本降低了29%。制氢成本的大幅降低证实了集成模型相对于独立塑料气化模型的优势。
