Modelling the H2 Potential and Production from Municipal Solid Waster in City of Guinea-Bissau

Abstract

The increase in the generation of municipal solid waste is a growing concern in terms of providing them with an adequate final destination. Still, access to energy poses enormous challenges, both social and economic. Energy is currently mostly produced by non-renewable sources, ending up having negative impacts causing various forms of pollution and emitting significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Anaerobic digestion is a biological technology for valuing the organic fraction of municipal solid waste in order to minimize the amount of waste that goes to landfills, minimizing the emission of greenhouse gases, odours from waste and taking advantage of the energy potential. This work serves to determine the hydrogen potential from the organic fraction of waste produced in Bissau and the electricity that can be obtained. The potential for biogas from the same waste was also determined. In Bissau, the production of municipal solid waste is estimated at a total of 316 tons/day, 37% of which is organic, the management of which poses enormous difficulties. On the other hand, the electrification rate is low since only 20% of the population has access to electricity. The methods used are based on consulting bibliographies in order to obtain mathematical expressions through other work already done that allows the respective potential to be determined and the calculations were made in Excel and economic viability was determined. The results show that with the valorisation of organic waste in the city of Bissau for the production of hydrogen, the electricity to be obtained is 0.0458 MWh and for biogas it would be 39.6102 MW with a decrease of approximately 3603452.28 Kg of carbon dioxide equivalent as greenhouse gas. The economic analysis indicates that just generating electricity with biogas will not be profitable, so it is necessary to take other bio products into account.