Waste to energy: An experimental study on hydrogen production from food waste gasification

Though food scarcity realizing in many places in the world, food waste generation still shows its increasing trend because of cultural and habitual changes, as well as technological characteristics. However, food waste comprises a large amount of organic material and biodegradable components, showing that it could be a potential source for producing hydrogen (H2) aiming to satisfy the key goals of diversifying the energy supply and reducing environmental pollution. Indeed, this research addresses the potential possibilities to use food waste for the production of H2 by using a water gasification reactor. In this work, food waste was gasified by varying the operating parameters in the H2 production process and the addition of additives. In this investigation, different additives such as HCl, NaCl, and NaHCO3 were considered to investigate at different reactor temperatures like 300, 350, and 400 °C for different reaction durations like 30, 45, and 60 min. The results revealed that the best average yields of CH4, H2, CO2, CO, and total gas were obtained as 1.5, 12.9, 0.2, 0.1, and 13.9 mol/kg, respectively, when the reaction employed with NaHCO3 additive than the other cases (with HCl, NaCl additives and no additive cases). The H2 production efficiency was estimated as 43%, 34%, 27%, and 30% when the use of NaHCO3, NaCl, HCl, and no additives. Hence, it is found that the NaHCO3 catalyst considerably enhances the gasification process through the improvement of the water-gas shift reaction, and thereby H2 production increases.