UK’s first waste plastic to hydrogen plant moves step closer to construction

The facility is expected to be built at the Protos park, an industrial waste-to-energy eco-plant near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire that is being built by infrastructure development company Peel L&P Environmental

The ‘UK first’ facility, which gained planning consent from Cheshire West & Chester Council in March 2020, will use pioneering DMG (Distributed Modular Generation) technology developed by Powerhouse Energy Group (PHE) at Thornton Science Park, next door to Protos. The technology will be used to create hydrogen from waste plastic which could be used to fuel cars, buses and HGVs.

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Chemical process transforms plastic waste to fuel

DMG works by shredding plastic in small pieces before heating them within a so-called thermal conversion chamber.

After an initial phase in which the plastic melts and is vaporised into gases, further heating reforms the molecules into a synthetic gas, comprising a mixture of largely methane, hydrogen and a smaller volume of carbon monoxide.