Technical evaluation of plasma-assisted entrained flow gasification for hydrogen-rich syngas production from waste and biomass

Plasma-assisted entrained flow gasification (EFG) offers a potential solution to convert low-quality biomass and waste feedstocks into high-quality syngas. This study, therefore, evaluates the theoretical technical potential of steam plasma-assisted EFG using a novel Aspen Plus model (eGas), which integrates the simulation of thermodynamic plasma properties and dissociation phenomena into Aspen Plus. Simulation results show that increasing the electrification ratio (ELR) to 0.48, corresponding to full steam plasma gasification, raises the H 2 /CO ratio to 1.03—more than double that of oxygen-blown EFG—while improving carbon conversion efficiency (CCE) to 95 % and reducing syngas CO 2 content by 79 %. The hydrogen-specific energy demand (HSED) reaches 181 MJ/kg H 2 , outperforming proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysis (198 MJ/kg H 2 ) for H 2 addition to syngas. Plasma power conversion efficiencies exceed 85 %. Validation against NASA CEA and Cantera confirms the model's accuracy. This highlights plasma-assisted EFG as a promising future technology for hydrogen-rich syngas production. • Aspen Plus model includes plasma-specific dissociation phenomena for gasification. • Plasma-assisted entrained flow gasification doubles H 2 content in syngas vs. O 2 -blown EFG. • Plasma has potential to achieve ≥85 % power conversion efficiency to syngas' LHV. • H 2 -specific electricity demand (181 MJ/kg H 2 ) for H 2 in syngas is lower than PEMEL. • Carbon conversion efficiency improves from 82 % to 95 % with full steam plasma gasification.