Life cycle assessment of waste-to-hydrogen systems for fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow, Scotland

Jade Lui; William Sloan; Manosh C. Paul; David Flynn; Siming You

doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127464

Life cycle assessment of waste-to-hydrogen systems for fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow, Scotland

Jade Lui, William Sloan, Manosh C. Paul, David Flynn, Siming You^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Engineering & Physical Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

Waste-to-hydrogen (WtH) technologies are proposed as a dual-purpose method for simultaneous non-fossil-fuel based hydrogen production and sustainable waste management. This work applied the life cycle assessment approach to evaluate the carbon saving potential of two main WtH technologies (gasification and fermentation) in comparison to the conventional hydrogen production method of steam methane reforming (SMR) powering fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow. It was shown that WtH technologies could reduce CO₂-eq emissions per kg H₂ by 50–69% as compared to SMR. Gasification treating municipal solid waste and waste wood had global warming potentials of 4.99 and 4.11 kg CO₂-eq/kg H₂ respectively, which were lower than dark fermentation treating wet waste at 6.6 kg CO₂-eq/kg H₂ and combined dark and photo fermentation at 6.4 kg CO₂-eq/kg H₂. The distance emissions of WtH-based fuel cell electric bus scenarios were 0.33–0.44 kg CO₂-eq/km as compared to 0.89 kg CO₂-eq/km for the SMR-based scenario.

Original language	English
Article number	127464
Journal	Bioresource Technology
Volume	359
Early online date	11 Jun 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2022.127464
Publication status	Published - Sept 2022

Keywords

Fuel cell electric buses
Hydrogen
Life cycle assessment
Net zero development
Waste-to-hydrogen

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Bioengineering
Environmental Engineering
Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
Waste Management and Disposal

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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title = "Life cycle assessment of waste-to-hydrogen systems for fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow, Scotland",

abstract = "Waste-to-hydrogen (WtH) technologies are proposed as a dual-purpose method for simultaneous non-fossil-fuel based hydrogen production and sustainable waste management. This work applied the life cycle assessment approach to evaluate the carbon saving potential of two main WtH technologies (gasification and fermentation) in comparison to the conventional hydrogen production method of steam methane reforming (SMR) powering fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow. It was shown that WtH technologies could reduce CO2-eq emissions per kg H2 by 50–69% as compared to SMR. Gasification treating municipal solid waste and waste wood had global warming potentials of 4.99 and 4.11 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 respectively, which were lower than dark fermentation treating wet waste at 6.6 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 and combined dark and photo fermentation at 6.4 kg CO2-eq/kg H2. The distance emissions of WtH-based fuel cell electric bus scenarios were 0.33–0.44 kg CO2-eq/km as compared to 0.89 kg CO2-eq/km for the SMR-based scenario.",

keywords = "Fuel cell electric buses, Hydrogen, Life cycle assessment, Net zero development, Waste-to-hydrogen",

author = "Jade Lui and William Sloan and Paul, {Manosh C.} and David Flynn and Siming You",

note = "Funding Information: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Studentship (EP/N509668/1) and Programme Grant (EP/V030515/1). Siming You would like to thank the funding support from the Royal Society (RGS\R1\211358) and UK Supergen Bioenergy Hub (RR 2022_10). All data supporting this study are provided in full in the 'Methodology' and 'Results and Discussion' sections of this paper. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors",

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N2 - Waste-to-hydrogen (WtH) technologies are proposed as a dual-purpose method for simultaneous non-fossil-fuel based hydrogen production and sustainable waste management. This work applied the life cycle assessment approach to evaluate the carbon saving potential of two main WtH technologies (gasification and fermentation) in comparison to the conventional hydrogen production method of steam methane reforming (SMR) powering fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow. It was shown that WtH technologies could reduce CO2-eq emissions per kg H2 by 50–69% as compared to SMR. Gasification treating municipal solid waste and waste wood had global warming potentials of 4.99 and 4.11 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 respectively, which were lower than dark fermentation treating wet waste at 6.6 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 and combined dark and photo fermentation at 6.4 kg CO2-eq/kg H2. The distance emissions of WtH-based fuel cell electric bus scenarios were 0.33–0.44 kg CO2-eq/km as compared to 0.89 kg CO2-eq/km for the SMR-based scenario.

AB - Waste-to-hydrogen (WtH) technologies are proposed as a dual-purpose method for simultaneous non-fossil-fuel based hydrogen production and sustainable waste management. This work applied the life cycle assessment approach to evaluate the carbon saving potential of two main WtH technologies (gasification and fermentation) in comparison to the conventional hydrogen production method of steam methane reforming (SMR) powering fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow. It was shown that WtH technologies could reduce CO2-eq emissions per kg H2 by 50–69% as compared to SMR. Gasification treating municipal solid waste and waste wood had global warming potentials of 4.99 and 4.11 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 respectively, which were lower than dark fermentation treating wet waste at 6.6 kg CO2-eq/kg H2 and combined dark and photo fermentation at 6.4 kg CO2-eq/kg H2. The distance emissions of WtH-based fuel cell electric bus scenarios were 0.33–0.44 kg CO2-eq/km as compared to 0.89 kg CO2-eq/km for the SMR-based scenario.

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Life cycle assessment of waste-to-hydrogen systems for fuel cell electric buses in Glasgow, Scotland

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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