Rapunzel, Rapunzel: Getting the Hydrogen We Need from the Garbage We Don’t

by Jim Lane (Hydrogen Digest) ... In the case of municipal solid waste, there are a couple of reasons why hydrogen might be a smart target, and why gasification is the best route, where we use heat to convert mixed waste streams to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. With gasification, we shift from a most complex heterogenous mess with vastly differing particle sizes, hardness, thickness, viscosities, water contents and so forth, into one of nature’s easiest to handle materials, known as syngas.

In their own way, the target markets of solid waste management and the rapidly building hydrogen economy are a little like that planet composed entirely of diamond. Ways2H touts that we spend, globally, $400 billion on solid waste and the hydrogen economy is tipped to reach $2.5 trillion by 2050 — or certainly, one day.

So, why isn’t everyone targeting hydrogen from waste? Mastering the technology is, as we used to say in Australia, “hard yakka,” a tough assignment. In that context, let’s look today at Ways2H, a new contender on the scene well worth knowing about.

The Ways2H backstory

Essentially, the Ways2H technology is a story in advanced gasification, which is to say that waste materials are heated until they result in that soupy mix of hydrogen and carbon monoxide known as syngas.

Ways2H Inc. is a partnership between Clean Energy Enterprises, a Long Beach based Clean Tech management company, and Japan Blue Energy Corporation (JBEC), the developer of the Ways2H process. Ways2H is the worldwide engineering, manufacturing and maintenance provider for the solutions that embed the Ways2H process.

The Competitive edge

In the advanced bioeconomy, most applications are targeting the carbon when it comes to syngas, hence the use of exotic catalysts to produce hydrocarbons, and many systems combust a portion of the biomass to generate the process heat to make syngas. Usual problems in this space are having the right amount of oxygen, a consistent stream of material, the temperature of the system, waste handling to get the MSW into particle size, catalyst life, and yield.

This particular approach eliminates some of these challenges. For one, the target is hydrogen, meaning the carbon monoxide can be combusted to create process heat and energy, no wastage of hydrogen molecules. And, no need for a catalyst because we are not trying to split the CO to make carbon to form hydrocarbons from.

Here’s the basic deal: Ways2H systems convert organic waste streams, including plastics, into hydrogen. They do not reject hazardous elements, are self-sustainable, scalable and have a small footprint that makes them suitable for decentralized waste treatment and clean energy production, thus addressing the major problem of logistics in both industries.

Kindler struck some attractive notes in describing the tech, because, for one, he noted that there’s little or no tar created by the process. Which is music to the ears of those who’ve had to deal with too much sludge and too much tar. Given that we’re talking about MSW, obviously there’s the attraction of handling mixed waste streams.

But a couple other process notes are of real interest. We heard “no use of partial oxidation”, “better control of temperature,” “much cleaner gas at output,” “little or no nitrogen or oxygen in the gas stream’,” and we heard that the system does not require as much precision when it comes to size and volume of particles — not quite as clean, not quite as well sorted as the other guy’s waste? Here’s an opportunity for you, friend.

Scale

Another point of differentiation: scale. Right now, these are 1 ton per day units, and mobile in character, transportable in a couple of 20 foot containers.

Kindler mentioned using medical waste and plastics — and those are two points of differentiation from a lot of systems out there which target organic waste. Some of those others can’t use the plastic which can make up to 33 percent of the waste stream, and they don’t generate enough heat to destroy what needs to be destroyed in medical waste situations.

Which of course, in the feedstock note, suggests that the system generates big temperatures — medical waste needs those. But there’s a nice fit, for example, for a large hospital system in search of renewable power. Fuel cells provide the power, the system consumes the waste.

Feedstock Requirements

Ah, but it’s not quite the case that it’s ANY feedstock in ANY condition. Kindler notes that preprocessing is required to take out the metals fraction from a waste stream, to shred the material to reduce and make uniform the particle size. And because the system can tolerate up to 10 percent or so in terms of water content, some drying is going to be in order because organic waste comes in wet.

The system will require tipping fees to be competitive — widely available at this time for mixed waste streams.

(T)his technology could go carbon negative with any kind of decent carbon capture system to trap the CO2 that’s emitted when CO is combusted for process energy. READ MORE