Plans to build the UK’s first waste plastic to hydrogen facility have moved a step closer to fruition with the completion of a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) phase.
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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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.
The Thermal Conversion Chamber operates without oxygen, so there is no burning, however a non-combusting oxidising agent in the form of steam is added to control the process and the quality of the syngas.
Once through the Conversion Chamber the syngas is cleaned, leaving behind a few inert harmless residues, which are typically less than five per cent of the starting volume of waste plastics. According to Powerhouse Energy these residues can then be reused for other purposes or safely disposed of.
Completed during lockdown, the FEED study assessed all the design and engineering aspects of the proposed facility. It also evaluated the total project costs – estimated at £20m – which will facilitate Peel L&P Environmental finalising the project financing.
The facility will transform the way plastic is dealt with regionally, with the scheme also set to provide a blueprint for future projects to be rolled out nationally. Peel L&P Environmental will develop 11 facilities across the UK in the next few years and has the option of exclusive rights to the Powerhouse Energy technology in the UK leading to over 70 facilities in total.
Peel L&P claims that the approach could revolutionise the way that 4.9 million tonnes of plastic waste generated in the UK each year is handled.
Richard Barker, Director at Peel L&P Environmental said: “This FEED phase is an important step forward in delivering this innovative technology at Protos. Working with Powerhouse Energy we’re creating a blueprint for this UK first plastic-to-hydrogen facility, with plans to roll out over 70 more across the UK. With hydrogen increasingly being seen as an important part of our journey to net zero the time is now.”
Peel L&P is now engaging with supply chain partners to support the project with construction expected to start later this year. The company is also in the process of applying for an Environmental Permit for the facility.
Seems like this could have some potential, but does raise some questions:
> How is the ‘thermal conversion chamber’ heated – what energy source is required ?
> Are the ‘inert harmless residues’ in the form of micro plastics ?
> What is the energy efficiency of this plant if the output products are compared with the energy
requirements and the construction and transportation impacts ?
> If the plant cannot attract enough ‘local’, UK, plastic waste to make it viable does it intend to
import plastic waste from overseas ?
Not trying to be negative but, I believe, it is important to cover all aspects and the whole lifecycle of these projects to ensure that they are really having a positive impact on the environment.
It would be interesting to know what kind of plastics can be used within this thermal conversion chamber. There are already a number of recycling options for some plastics, but a large proportion of plastics can’ t be handled with the current processes. Can any type of plastic be used in this plant?
Hi Ben, I believe end of life tyres carry the bulk the source of the plastics (as such) used to create the output products. However landfill plastics will also be used
I see no mention of the disposal route for the CO2 generated in the steam reforming of the methane (& carbon monoxide) from the pyrolysis of to feed plastics. Without a suitable “carbon capture and storage” scheme, this process is unlikely to meet the current zero-carbon fashion.
Because plastics have more or less a ratio H/C 2/1 on molar base and 1/6 in mass the H2 produced by pyrolysis is only a small fraction of the original mass. An the rest of the carbon?
It is difficult to make commercial scale hydrogen using premium feedstocks as an economic proposition. The idea of operating complex chemical plants on a chemically uncontrolled feedstock is as daft as the idea of investing in high capital cost electrolysis plant using excess wind power: large plant needs a good load-factor to have a chance of being economic.
Another enviro-babble project for HMG to spend my taxes on I suppose.
Hydrogen production will, of necessity, be subsidised by governments in their foolish attempts to displace gas from the domestic market.
Plastic is made from oil, so in emissions terms, this is equivalent to hydrogen from oil. It is a good way to get rid of plastic which would otherwise sit in landfill for ever but is not zero emissions unless carbon capture and storage is implemented.
As Rick comments, the waste plastic could be in landfills for ever. I would say that that is true and efficient CCS, while re-use of plastics (less efficiently than is possible from a premium feedstock) is increasing the wastage, as well as being far more costly.
Using any oil-based feedstock produces many times the CO2 of methane based conversion, greatly increasing the CCS costs, which are still only hopes!
If the promoters of the technology are unwilling to quote the thermal efficiency or the CO2 emissions, or the relative cost of the H2 produced, then I gues there is something to hide.
This is not new technology but the commercial balance has changed for the better
Normally these plants use some of the hydrogen as the energy required but( they are obviously energy positive.) Remember the world is using various methods to produce hydrogen already nearly all are dirtier and more expensive than gasification type plants. The higher the gasification temp generally the higher the efficiency even CO2 can be split so that the oxygen is used as part of the fuel equation. This type of technology could be invaluable in tackling mixed wast streams that are at present near impossible to dispose of environmentally.
Stephen, A number of systems have been designed and built using Mixed municipal waste streams including plastics, lumber, shredded tires in proportional mixes, and fed into a Plasma Arc furnace where the waste is destroyed into a molecular syngas. This is separated, cleaned, and the gases filtered into there various constituents CO2, Methane/Hydrogen, and liquid VOCs.
The problem has been getting amply supplies of needed materials and cheaply. Plasco LLC in Canada is currently mothballed due to the material supply problems, operated well for two years.
Pyrolisis leaves to much ash/debris and volatiles.
Thanks for this comment. Are there in fact two stages where CO2 (and methane?) are released? First is during the process of making the syngas, and second is during combustion of the syngas. PHE envisages using the syngas to power the syngas-making unit, plus it also wants users of the technology to be able to burn the syngas for heat, or to generate electricity. It seems to me, however it’s dressed up, this is 100% fossil fuel technology, and that a better route would be to store the plastic waste and to use renewable energy for power. I can’t see the green energy argument at all.
Can you explain how the PHE process is ‘true carbon capture and storage’? PHE outlines a number of different options: producing syngas for heating; producing hydrogen; producing electricity from the gasification of plastic waste. Surely in all three of these, carbon dioxide is released, twice in the case of the heat or electricity. They talk in their presentations of ‘targeting’ what the chambers produce and never mention the carbon dioxide by-product. Also, methane is part of the process; is this converted/combusted? Thanks.