Environment and economic assessment of hydrogen production from methane and ethanol

Abstract

Hydrogen is an interesting energy source alternative to fossil fuel which commonly produced from a non-renewable resource such as methane. Alternatively, ethanol is an attractive resource option for producing hydrogen because of its renewability. Assessing both alternatives is important for selection of better and sustainable option. In this work, we perform an environmental and economic assessment of both hydrogen production pathways and compare its performance. In doing that, both processes were modelled and simulated in Aspen Plus V8.6. Sensitivity analysis were performed as well. Life cycle assessment (LCA) ReciPe method was performed to evaluate the environmental performance using GaBi sotware. Overall, 16 categories impact assessment were evaluated. Economic assessment was based on capital expenditure (CAPEX) of all main equipment and operating expenditure (OPEX) of utilities. From LCA results, three categories were identified as highly significant namely climate change, fossil depletion and water depletion. Methane shows a higher impact on climate change. In contrary, ethanol shows a higher impact on fossil fuel resource depletion and water resources. Economic assessment shows that in term of capital expenditure (CAPEX) methane is 5.2% less compared to ethanol. Whereas, for operating expenditure (OPEX) methane is 12.8% less compared to ethanol. Overall, our findings show that methane outwit ethanol despite the latter uses a renewable source for hydrogen production.