Waste-to-Hydrogen: challenges and opportunities in the UK scenario

Hydrogen is widely recognised to have a key role to decarbonise various industries, as well as transportation, heating and power sectors, for it does not generate greenhouse gas emissions at the point of use. Understanding the technologies that can generate low carbon hydrogen is essential in planning the development of future gas networks and more sustainable manufacturing processes. One promising approach is hydrogen production by gasification of waste, referred to as biohydrogen. This paper summarises work undertaken to design a commercial Waste-to-Hydrogen (WtH2) plant, which includes an assessment of current development stage of technologies, the identification of an appropriate scale for the plants, and development of specifications for process design and output streams. The overall production levels of biohydrogen is observed to be limited by the availability of sustainable feedstocks; however, the results of negative CO2 emissions achieved via biohydrogen production shows that its overall potential to reduce GHG emissions is significantly better, as compared to other form or low carbon hydrogen. In particular, biohydrogen application is capable of generating negative emissions that are required to offset GHGs from other sectors in the future. In combination, low carbon hydrogen production can make a very important contribution to achieving net zero commitment in UK