Organic municipal solid waste derived hydrogen production through supercritical water gasification process configured with K2CO3/SiO2: Performance study

Cities worldwide face a significant public health and environmental challenge in handling municipal solid waste (MSW). This research exposed an effective utilization of MSW as the source for hydrogen production via a supercritical water gasification process under 450-650 degrees C at 15-45 min processing time. The impacts of gasification temperature and processing time on the functional properties of hydrogen production are studied. Its results are compared to identify the optimum processing temperature and processing time to adopt the system. Integrating 3 wt% silicon dioxide (SiO2) nanoparticles/3 wt% of potassium carbonate (K2CO3) enhances hydrogen production by increasing the catalyst's surface area and improving the stability of active sites, leading to more efficient gasification reactions. Increasing the gasification temperature from 450 to 650 degrees C significantly raises the hydrogen molar fraction and gas yield with peak gasification efficiency (GE) and hydrogen efficiency (HE) values. The gasifier functioned with catalyst (3 wt% K2CO3/SiO2) under 650 degrees C gasification temperature and 45min gasification time influenced better output responses like improved hydrogen gas yield of 63.7 mol/kg, higher gasification efficiency of 59.8 %, better hydrogen efficiency (63.4 %) and increased carbon conversion efficiency of 63.4 and 42.5 % respectively.