Techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment of a bamboo dust-based thermoelectrochemical process for hydrogen production: A waste to wealth approach

Abstract Bamboo biomass, a widely used renewable resource, generates substantial bamboo dust waste during processing. This can be converted into hydrogen through a thermo-electrochemical process. This study presents a detailed techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment under two distinct energy supply scenarios: photovoltaic and industrial grid energy. The technoeconomic analysis assesses capital expenditure and operating expenditure for a facility with a capacity of 1000 kg/day, including itemized cost estimation and sensitivity analysis. The results show that the cost of hydrogen production has been determined as 1.68 $/kg hydrogen for the photovoltaic-based system and 3.14 $/kg hydrogen for the grid-based system. A ±20% sensitivity analysis on capital expenditure and operating expenditure costs demonstrated that the photovoltaic-based system retained economic feasibility even with cost escalation, due to favorable process conditions and system reliability. The environmental performance has been assessed through a cradle-to-gate using SimaPro (ecoinvent v3.8) with 1kg of hydrogen as the functional unit, evaluating impact categories such as global warming potential, ozone depletion, eutrophication, acidification, human health, and resource depletion through the ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint (H). The photovoltaic-based process has a much-reduced global warming potential (2.35 kg CO2 eq per kg hydrogen) compared to the grid-based system (34.64 kg CO2 eq per kg hydrogen). A regional sensitivity analysis of India and the Rest of the World found that India's higher solar radiation compensates for photovoltaic manufacturing emissions, hence improving sustainability. The findings of techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment revealed that producing hydrogen from bamboo dust as feedstock through the thermo-electrochemical process driven by photovoltaic is both economically and environmentally favorable compared with the gasification process, with a hydrogen production cost of 1.80 $/kg, and a global warming potential of 3.25 kg CO2 eq per kg hydrogen.