Journal of the Energy Institute 107 (2023) 101173

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Journal of the Energy Institute

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On the operating parameters for hydrogen-rich syngas production in a

plasma co-gasification process of municipal solid wastes and polypropylene
using a constrained model in Aspen plus
Armin Okati a, Mohammad Reza Khani a, Babak Shokri a, Eliseu Monteiro b, c, *, Abel Rouboa b, c, d
a
Shahid Beheshti University, Laser and Plasma Research Institute, 1983963113, Tehran, Iran
b
Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal
c
LAETA-INEGI, Associated Laboratory for Energy, Transports and Aeronautics, Institute of Science and Innovation in Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Rua Dr.
Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal
d
Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics of SEAS, University of Pennsylvania, PA, 19104-6391, Philadelphia, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Handling Editor: Dr. Paul Williams Polypropylene and municipal solid wastes (MSW) are produced in large quantities presenting a serious envi­
ronmental problem. Plasma gasification is one of the most environmentally friendly processes for the elimination
Keywords: of plastic wastes and MSW due to the high temperatures that guarantee that toxic compounds are decomposed.
Plasma co-gasification The feasibility of the plasma co-gasification of MSW and polypropylene wastes was investigated through a
Hydrogen
constrained model developed in Aspen Plus®. A parametric study was performed to investigate the effect of
Municipal solid waste
important parameters such as temperature, equivalence ratio, steam-to-waste ratio, and different ratios of
Polypropylene
Quasi-equilibrium polypropylene in the feedstock on the quality of syngas and hydrogen production. The good agreement of the
Aspen plus model results with literature results ensures the robustness of the simulation’s performance. The results suggest
that the highest molar fractions of hydrogen are obtained with higher proportions of polyethylene in the waste
mixture. Low air-to-waste ratios and low equivalence ratios are favorable to hydrogen generation. The amount of
steam injected into the co-gasification system and temperature variation have a minor effect on hydrogen pro­
duction. These findings could help launch plasma co-gasification industrial projects as a new waste-to-energy
management method.

1. Introduction
Fossil fuel consumption, rising energy demand and global warming
have led many researchers to focus on alternative and environmentally
friendly energy sources [1]. One of the most promising methods for
materials and energy recovery has already been proven to be plasma
gasification. Plasma gasification is one of the advanced methods which
has attracted much attention in recent years and has led research to
move from common methods such as conventional gasification and
combustion to plasma gasification [2].
The role of gasification in the future of the world’s energy is taken for
granted. Many researchers believe that plasma gasification can intro­
duce unique characteristics to conventional gasification, reaching
higher and more controllable temperatures and safe products, for
instance. Gasification occurs by reacting carbon fuel with a limited
amount of oxygen and sometimes in combination with steam. The result
of this process is a valuable synthetic gas (syngas), which is used to
generate energy and chemical products [3,4]. The introduction of
thermal plasma to the gasification process has opened new avenues for
this process; plasma can produce extremely high temperatures and many
reactive species that can decompose more than 90% of organic com­
pounds into syngas and break complex hydrocarbon bonds in the
absence of catalysts [5]. Plasma gasification can be utilized for high ash
wastes such as municipal wastes due to its stable and fuel-independent
thermal properties [6]. Plasma provides enough energy to maintain
the temperature inside the reactor to separate the gaseous molecules
created during the decomposition process of the material; on the other
hand, inorganic waste materials are converted into environmentally
friendly slags which can be used in industry [7,8]. Tars and other im­
purities are one of the challenges in the conventional gasification

* Corresponding author. Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465, Porto, Portugal.
E-mail address: emonteiro@fe.up.pt (E. Monteiro).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joei.2023.101173
Received 8 August 2022; Received in revised form 23 December 2022; Accepted 3 January 2023
Available online 4 January 2023
1743-9671/© 2023 Energy Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Okati et al.
process because they could damage the downstream utilization devices.
Whilst in plasma gasifiers, due to the high temperature produced, the tar
inside the syngas breaks down, leading to the production of a cleaner
syngas. This reduces the cost of cleaning the gaseous byproduct [9].
Furthermore, plasma gasification is a reliable alternative to conven­
tional thermochemical conversion methods for it offers greater recovery
potential [10]. Pyrolysis, conventional gasification, and plasma gasifi­
cation can be considered the major advanced thermal treatment tech­
nologies for municipal waste. Many researchers have introduced plasma
gasification as an efficient method to recover energy and materials,
which is also more environmentally friendly and safer [11,12]. Although
the concerns created in front of plasma gasification technology are often
related to the economic field [13]. compared plasma gasification with
widely used incineration and presented a cost analysis and optimization
that shows that the investment cost of a gas plasma power plant is
comparable to a conventional combustion power plant that is widely
used in the world [11]. after the comprehensive environmental assess­
ment of plasma gasification technology and considering economic and
social aspects reported that plasma gasification can have several envi­
ronmental and technical advantages compared to combustion, and also
high revenues generated by plasma gasification can rebate its operating
costs. Modeling is one of the efforts made to optimize the gasification
process and prepare this process for use on an industrial scale [14].
proposed an Aspen Plus® model of biomass air and steam gasification to
predict gasification properties and performance. They investigated the
effect of parameters such as temperature, equivalence ratio, steam/­
biomass on gasification characteristics [15]. have developed a mathe­
matical model of biomass gasification in a bubbling fluidized bed reactor
in Aspen Plus environment and have also considered a tar generation
and cracking sub-model in their study. The model can deal with various
biomasses and gasification agents [16]. have developed a combined
model for tar and biomass gasification using Aspen Plus which also
considers CO2 absorption. In their model, gasification has evaluated
three types of microalgae and reported that increasing the amount of
oxygen to the combustion phase improves the gasification performance
and system efficiency [17]. developed a computational model in Aspen
Plus to assess the plasma gasification process of polychlorinated
biphenyl wastes (PCB). An extensive parametric study was performed to
determine the influence of various process parameters (equivalence
ratio, steam-to-waste ratio, and carbon dioxide-to-waste ratio) on the
generation of syngas. Their results show that PCB plasma gasification
processing leads to the generation of a high amount of hydrochloric acid.
The use of steam as the gasifying agent increases the generation of H2,
while the use of CO2 as the gasifying agent increases the generation of
CO.
Plastics are produced in large quantities due to the high demand for
their use in a variety of applications especially in packing materials,
electronics, cars, and households [18]. Consequently, plastic waste can
have mainly two origins: municipal and industrial [19]. Plastic in
municipal solid waste streams make up less than 15% of the weight of
the organic waste stream [20]. In addition to the existence of plastics in
municipal solid waste streams, many wastes collected from industries
might have much higher percentages of plastics. Polypropylene (PP) and
polyethylene (PE) are the most widely used plastics [21]. The world
demand for PP creates an annual market of around 102 million tonnes
and it is estimated that the demand will grow to 127 million tonnes by
2022 [22]. The main clients of PP are the packaging industry, which uses
around 30% of the total, followed by the electrical and equipment
manufacturing, which consumes around 13% each. Automotive in­
dustries and household appliances both spend 10% each and construc­
tion materials follows with 5% of the market [22]. The actual common
treatments employed to plastic waste streams comprised mainly incin­
eration and landfilling, which are not environmentally friendly options
[23]. One of the most adequate processes for the treatment of plastic
wastes and MSW is plasma gasification. This process is advantageous
mainly because high temperatures guarantee that toxic elements are
2
Journal of the Energy Institute 107 (2023) 101173
decomposed, making the plasma gasification an environmentally
friendly process [24]. In addition, the inorganic substances of the
feedstock are transformed into slag by the high plasma temperature that
is easily disposed of.
Many researchers have also modeled plasma gasification using Aspen
Plus in recent years, including [25–28]; and [17]. However, very few
models have exploited the quasi-equilibrium approach to the plasma
gasification process. In order to overcome the limitations of equilibrium
models and be more consistent with experimental results, a constrained
equilibrium model has been built to study the plasma co-gasification of
municipal solid wastes and plastic wastes as a new waste-to-energy
management method.
The proposed constrained equilibrium model can be used for eco­
nomic study, and to check the suitable conditions for producing best-
quality syngas, and to pave the way for replacing waste incineration
centers with gasification power plants. The implemented model is able
to evaluate the effect of essential performance parameters such as
temperature, equivalence ratio, steam-to-waste ratio, and municipal
waste-to-polypropylene ratio on the performance of the process and
predict the optimal conditions for this process and hydrogen production.
2. Model development
Aspen Plus software is widely known as a reliable asset for the
simulation of the plasma gasification process. Aspen Plus has a powerful
thermodynamic database for chemical species. Since there is no tool for
simulating the gasification process directly in this software, plasma
gasification simulation must be done by combining some equipment.
The developed model is based on Gibbs free energy minimization.
Mathematical formulation related to this model is described in detail in
the literature [29,30]. Wastes are introduced in the software as
non-conventional solids and HCOALGEN and DCOALIGT as the internal
models in the Aspen Plus are used to calculate the enthalpy and density
of the residues, respectively. The waste properties used in this work can
be seen in Table 1.
The model developed in Aspen Plus is depicted in Fig. 1. The initial
steps to simulate gasification begin with the removal of moisture and the
decomposition of the waste into its constituent elements. Therefore,
input waste enters the DECOMPOS (RYIELD) block by the FEED stream,
and the waste is decomposed into its components according to their
ultimate analysis. Many researchers have referred to the elemental
decomposition step as pyrolysis [28,31]. The moisture in the compo­
nents is removed by the SEPERAT1 (SEP) block and then, the dry waste
is sent to the LTR (RGIBSS) where the plasma co-gasification process is
simulated as the next step based upon the Gibbs free energy minimiza­
tion principle. The upper part of the LTR equipment is for introducing
the gasifying agent into the system as plasma. The gasification agent (air
or steam) first enters the TORCH (HEAT EXCHANGER) where its tem­
perature rises to reach that of the plasma and then, enters the LTR block.
Thermodynamic equilibrium models typically underestimate the
amount of CH4 [30]; therefore, the RESTRICT block was used to adjust
the gas composition. In this block, the equilibrium temperatures of
water-gas-shift (CO + H2 O ↔ CO2 + H2 ) and steam-methane reforming
(CH4 + H2 O→CO + 3H2 ) reactions are limited and assumed to be less
than the gasification temperature [32,33]. Consequently, some compo­
nents (H2, CO, CO2, CH4, H2O) are separated from the products to apply
Table 1
Ultimate and proximate analysis of MSW and PP [4,14].
Ultimate analysis (%) MSW PP Proximate analysis (%) MSW PP
C 51.81 86 Volatile matter 82.28 100
H 5.76 14 Fixed carbon 11.79 0
N 0.26 0 Moisture 8.8 0
O 30.22 0 Ash 5.93 0
S 0.36 0 HHV (MJ/kg) 19.8 43.40
A. Okati et al.
Fig. 1. Process flowsheet for the plasma co-gasification in Aspen Plus.
the restricted equilibrium by SEPERAT2 and then directed to the
RESTRICT block.
The final step in simulating plasma gasification can be syngas cool­
ing, followed by the separation of gaseous and solid products as syngas
and slag by the SEPERAT3 block. HEATER1 and HEATER2 blocks are
also used to simulate the heat transfer of products to wastes.
2.1. Model validation
To validate the developed constrained equilibrium model, the results
of two well-established equilibrium plasma gasification models from the
literature are compared. The first is the equilibrium gasification model
(called GasifEq) of [34]. In this model, the stoichiometric equilibrium is
calculated by three independent gasification reactions (C + H2 O ↔ CO +
H2 ; CO + H2 O ↔ CO2 + H2 ; CH4 + H2 O→CO + 3H2 ), to include the
possibility for soot (solid carbon) formation, three partial mass balances
(for C, H, and O), and one heat balance.
The second is an equilibrium gasification model based on the mini­
mization of Gibbs free energy implemented in Cycle-Tempo software by
Ref. [35]. The model comprises the equation of the atomic balance for
each element (C, H, O, N, and S), the equation of the total number of
moles, the equations of the variation of the standard Gibbs free energy of
species formation, and the equation of the energy balance in the gasifier,
assuming a heat loss in the gasification process of 1% of the HHV of the
biomass. The non-stoichiometric equilibrium is calculated by the mini­
mization of Gibbs free energy using the Lagrange multipliers and an
energy balance. The obtained system is non-linear, and it has been
solved using the Newton–Raphson algorithm.
For this comparison, a simulation was performed using the devel­
oped constrained model under the same gasification conditions, i.e.,
sawdust with 10% moisture and a temperature of 800 ◦ C used by both
the literature models. The biomass composition is depicted in Table 2.
Fig. 2 shows a comparison of the results of our model with the nu­
merical data obtained by Ref. [35] and by Ref. [34].
The developed model’s molar fraction of syngas components closely
matches the numerical data of [34,35]. Our model’s relative error is less
than 10% when compared to Ref. [35] data and less than 3% when
compared to Ref. [34] results. Methane is not included in the compari­
son due to the near-zero molar fractions usually present in plasma
gasification processes.
Table 2
Ultimate analysis of sawdust with 10% moisture
[35].
Element (%) Weight (%)
C 52.00
H 6.07
N 0.28
O 41.55
S –
Ash 0.10
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Journal of the Energy Institute 107 (2023) 101173
Fig. 2. Comparison between the developed model in Aspen Plus and litera­
ture data.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Effect of the MSW ratio
In a co-gasification process is essential to have proper knowledge of
the impact of different waste ratios on the quality of syngas. The
following ratio was used to evaluate this effect:
MSW ratio =
MSW flow rate
(1)
MSW + PP flow rate
By increasing MSW ratio, the amount of municipal solid waste in the
waste composition increases and reaches a maximum value of 1.0 at
which the composition is formed entirely of MSW. Fig. 3a shows the
effects of MSW ratio and air-to-waste ratio on the amount of hydrogen
production. The highest value of hydrogen was obtained for an air-to-
waste ratio of 0.5 and for an MSW ratio of 0.2 (higher amounts of PP
in the waste mixture). These results can be justified by the large amount
of carbon and hydrogen present in the PP wastes and by the oxygen
starved atmosphere of the air/waste ratio of 0.5.
Increasing the steam-to-waste ratio yields more hydrogen, except
when extremely low MSW ratios (0.4) and steam-to-waste ratios (0.8)
are used (Fig. 3b). In this case, the highest percentage of hydrogen in the
syngas was obtained with a MSW ratio of 0.1 and a steam-to -waste ratio
of 0.6. As said before, the increase of hydrogen amounts for low MSW
ratios is due to the superior carbon and hydrogen content present in the
feedstock mixture. On the other hand, the increase of the steam-to-waste
ratio means that more steam is introduced in the process which pro­
motes the water-gas-shift and steam reforming reactions that generate
more hydrogen [36,37].
3.2. Effect of the equivalence ratio
The equivalence ratio determines the quantity of oxygen injected
into the system and plays a key role in the conversion of waste into
gaseous products and the quality of syngas [38]. In order to assess the
A. Okati et al. Journal of the Energy Institute 107 (2023) 101173

Fig. 3. Effect of MSW ratio and (a) air/waste ratio (b) steam/waste on hydrogen molar fraction.

effect of ER on the syngas composition, various simulations were per­

formed varying the ER from 0.1 to 1.0, while maintaining a fixed tem­
perature of 1500 ◦ C. Fig. 4 shows the results of this parametric study.
As indicated in Fig. 4, the raising of ER increase the amount of CO2
and decreases the amount of the gaseous fuels (H2, CO, CH4). This is due
to the presence of higher amounts of oxygen in the plasma reactor
enhancing the combustion reactions. Therefore, the highest amount of
hydrogen is obtained for an ER of 0.1 [39,40]. have reported similar
trends.

3.3. Effect of the gasification temperature

Temperature is a gasification parameter which strongly affect the

quality of syngas and the reactions in the gasification process [41]. High
temperatures are of paramount importance for the purpose of breaking
down contaminants such as tar [24]. In order to investigate the effect of
this parameter, its combination with air-to-waste ratio on hydrogen
production is depicted in Fig. 5.
The effect of air-to-waste ratio is more important than that of tem­
perature on hydrogen production. One can observe that the hydrogen
amount generated is almost constant for temperatures above 1200 ◦ C for
each air-to-waste ratio. Therefore, the highest amount of hydrogen was
obtained for the lowest air-to-waste ratio (0.5) and the highest tem­
perature (2000 ◦ C). These results can be justified by the oxygen starved
atmosphere of the air/waste ratio of 0.5 reducing the combustion re­
actions. The effect of temperature on hydrogen producing can be
Fig. 4. Effect of equivalence ratio on syngas composition.
Fig. 5. Hydrogen production versus air/waste and temperature for a 0.5
MSW ratio.
explained by Le Chatelier’s principle, which favors the forward direction
of endothermic reactions like the water-gas (C + H2 O⟷CO + H2 ), and
steam-methane reforming (CH4 + H2 O⟷CO + 3H2 ) leading to the
production of more hydrogen [42]. However, a nearly constant molar
fraction of H2 is found above 1200 ◦ C, which means that the chemical
equilibrium was probably reached.
The combined effect of the temperature and steam-to-waste ratio on
hydrogen production was also investigated, which can be seen in Fig. 6.
The highest amounts of hydrogen are obtained for low steam-to-waste
ratios (0.5) and temperatures above 1200 ◦ C, or high steam-to-waste
ratios (>2.0) and temperatures below 1200 ◦ C. The conditions that
maximize the hydrogen molar fraction can be reported as a steam-to-
waste of 3.0 and a temperature of 1200 ◦ C. The increase of steam-to-
waste ratio enhances the steam reforming and water-gas-shift re­
actions leading to the increase of hydrogen content. The temperature
increase favors the forward direction of endothermic reactions such as
water-gas (C + H2 O⟷CO + H2 ) and steam-methane reforming (CH4 +
H2 O⟷CO + 3H2 ), according to Le Chatelier’s principle, and disfavors
exothermic reactions such as water-gas-shift (CO + H2 O⟷CO2 + H2 ),

4
A. Okati et al.
Fig. 6. Hydrogen production versus steam/waste and temperature for a 0.5
MSW ratio.
leading to an increase in the carbon monoxide molar fraction rather than
the hydrogen content. These results are in good agreement with the
existing data in the literature [43,44].
3.4. Effect of the gasifying agent
The effect of the gasifying agents air and steam on hydrogen gener­
ation is shown in Fig. 7. In this parametric study, both ratios (air/waste
and steam/waste) are varied from 0.5 to 2.0 and the temperature is fixed
at 1500 ◦ C.
Fig. 7 shows an increasing trend of the hydrogen molar fraction with
decreasing air-to-waste ratios while keeping nearly constant the
hydrogen molar fraction with increasing steam-to-waste ratios. As sug­
gested in Fig. 7, the effect of the air-to-waste ratio is much more relevant
Fig. 7. Hydrogen production versus steam/waste and air/steam ratios.
5
Journal of the Energy Institute 107 (2023) 101173
than that of the steam-to-waste ratio on hydrogen molar fraction. The
highest hydrogen molar fraction is obtained for the air-to-waste ratio of
0.5 and for the steam-to-waste ratio of 2.0. This is because, as mentioned
in the previous sections, combustion reactions are enhanced by the
amount of oxygen supplied to the plasma reactor, and the steam
reforming reactions are enhanced by the increasing amount of steam
injected into the system.
3.5. Lower heating value
Lower heating value (LHV) is the heat released by the complete
combustion of a certain amount of fuel less than the heat of evaporation
of water in the combustion products [45]. The LHV of syngas is calcu­
lated as follows [46]:
LHVsyngas = 10.79yH2 + 12.62yCO + 35.81yCH4 (2)
Where yi represents the molar fraction of each combustible gas (H2, CO,
and CH4). The effect of steam-to-waste ratio on the syngas LHV can be
seen in Fig. 8.
As Fig. 8 indicates, the LHV values decrease when increasing the
steam-to-waste ratio. The main reason for this behavior is the decrease
in the carbon monoxide content in the syngas as reported by Ref. [31].
Fig. 9 shows the effect of temperature on the LHV of the syngas. As can
be observed, the temperature has a major effect on the LHV of the
syngas. The decreasing trend of the LHV with temperature can be due to
the decrease in the amount of CH4 in the syngas typical in plasma
gasification processes. As shown in Eq. (2), CH4 influences the LHV of
the syngas three times more than the H2 or the CO.
4. Conclusion
In this study, the feasibility of the plasma co-gasification of munic­
ipal solid wastes and polypropylene wastes was investigated through the
modeling and simulation of the plasma gasification process in Aspen
Plus. Having been validated with literature data, the developed con­
strained model was used to investigate the effect of different operational
parameters on hydrogen generation. The results of the sensitivity anal­
ysis suggest that the highest molar fractions of hydrogen are obtained
with higher proportions of polyethylene in the waste mixture. Low air-
to-waste ratios and low equivalence ratios are favorable to hydrogen
generation. The amount of steam injected into the co-gasification system
and temperature seem to have a minor effect on hydrogen production.
Therefore, low temperatures should be used to maximize the plasma co-
gasification process’s efficiency. The results show that by taking
Fig. 8. Effect of the steam-to-waste ratio on syngas LHV for an MSW ratio
of 0.5.
A. Okati et al.
Fig. 9. Effect of temperature on the LHV of the syngas using air as the gasi­
fying agent.
advantage of the combination of municipal solid waste and plastic, one
can benefit from their great potential to be used as economically viable
feedstocks for the production of high-quality syngas. The model pre­
sented in this study can be implemented as an invaluable asset for the
evaluation and economic and social studies of gasification processes for
various wastes.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
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