Abstract
Waste landfill and incineration as well as liquid fossil fuels in transport sector are major sources of greenhouse gases emission. Waste-to-hydrogen production via biogas steam reforming can simultaneously achieve the goals of waste management and hydrogen for green transportation. In this study, the techno-economic and environmental assessments of food-waste-to-hydrogen refueling station in three selected cities in Gauteng province of South Africa were performed. The aim was to determine the hydrogen production capacity for the refueling station, determine their economic viability and ecological efficiency. The refueling stations’ capacity was determined based on assumption that a 5 kg fuel cell vehicle is refueled per day. The results indicate that the City of Tshwane and City of Johannesburg have a refueling station capacity of over 395 and 356 thousand kg/day H2, respectively. The economic analysis shows investment in hydrogen refueling station in these cities is viable with positive net present value ranging from 4.9033 to 8.0563 Billon USD, levelized cost of hydrogen between 3.99 USD/kg to 4.34 USD/kg, payback period of 9.03 to 13.74 years and internal rate of return from 18.16 % to 39.88 %. An ecological efficiency of 95.84 % was obtained indicating an environmentally friendly system.