Title: Comparison of hydrogen production with the help of the plastic digesting organisms and by pyrolysis

Authors: Cennet Yıldız; Ali Bahadır Olcay; Mustafa Özilgen

Addresses: Department of Food Engineering, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yeditepe University, Kayisdagi Cad., 34755 Istanbul, Turkey ' Department of Food Engineering, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract: Plastic waste collected from the landfills may be washed, shredded, digested by plastic-eating microorganisms centrifuged and sent back to the landfill. If the generated water should be electrolysed, in the case of processing 10% of the annually generated plastic waste, 24.2 Mt of plastic may be eliminated and 2.4 × 10³ kWh of energy may be recovered with the energy recovery ratio of 0.8. This ratio would be 2 in the case of pyrolysis, indicating that pyrolysis may be 2.5 folds more efficient than the microbial process. Moreover, pyrolysis occurs at high temperatures and is much faster than the microbial process. If we can find a safe way to innoculate the dump sides with the plastic digesting microorganisms, hydrogen may be generated without the production of carbon dioxide and water; the plastic waste may be reduced in the long run.

Keywords: plastic waste; landfills; hydrogen-generating organisms; pyrolysis; waste reduction.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGW.2023.130138

International Journal of Global Warming, 2023 Vol.29 No.4, pp.395 - 405

Received: 22 May 2022
Accepted: 31 Jul 2022
Published online: 05 Apr 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article