Solar-Assisted Monetization of Municipal Solid Waste

Abstract

Municipal solid waste (MSW) is a significant resource, especially for biomass-based monetization. In addition to its economic potential, it can also provide an effective pathway for decarbonization in the energy and chemical sectors. In this work, MSW monetization is coupled with the solar-assisted generation of “green” hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. The dual utilization of electrolysis-produced hydrogen and oxygen offers several advantages, including the reduction in the carbon footprint, the tunability of the characteristics of synthesis gas (syngas) to conform to the values needed for the manufacture of various chemicals, and the reduction in the overall cost compared to systems focusing on hydrogen generation only. A superstructure is developed to represent the configurations of interest and serve as a basis for formulating an optimization program that can be solved to identify the optimal design and operating strategies. A multi-period optimization formulation is developed to identify the maximum profit subject to the various modeling equations and constraints. The environmental considerations are addressed using the ɛ-constraint method by iteratively varying carbon footprint cuts. A case study is solved for the City of Jeddah, and the results assess the tradeoffs of various design and operating strategies, their impact on profitability, and their environmental impact.