With thousands of tons of used surgical masks dumped through the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers in Lithuania say they have the “serious industrial eco-solution” required to deal with that waste and it features hydrogen.
They have been exploring the potential of plasma gasification as a way to convert surgical mask waste into clean energy products and have managed to obtain a synthetic gas that has a high abundance of hydrogen. The face masks were shredded down to a uniform particle size and then converted into granules which could be easily controlled during treatment.
Through experiments, the researchers were able to obtain a yield of hydrogen at a steam-to-carbon ratio of 1.45, with the obtained synthetic gas found to have a heating value 42% higher than that produced from biomass. Advanced gasification techniques such as plasma gasification were also found to be more efficient when it comes to obtaining a concentration of hydrogen – up to 50% – within synthetic gas production. Plasma gasification was also found to decrease the amount of tar in the syngas as well, making it higher quality.
The researchers said that plasma gasification is one of the best methods to obtain hydrogen-rich synthetic gas. The yield of the syngas was around 95% of the total amount of feedstock, with soot and tar the remaining products. The tar was found to have benzene, toluene, naphthalene and acenaphthylene as its main compounds. There is potential for it to be used as a clean fuel in different industries with low carbon emissions, according to the researchers.
The soot, meanwhile, was found to contain black carbon as its main component which is something that can be used across a host of different applications, including energy, wastewater treatment and agriculture.
