Techno-economic assessment of hydrogen production from refuse-derived fuel using legacy mining infrastructure

The EU HydroMine project investigates waste valorisation, carbon capture, and the reuse of legacy mine infrastructure to produce hydrogen (targeting 90–99.99% purity) from refuse-derived fuel (RDF). RDF is non-recyclable municipal waste in the sense of circular economy, but currently applied in, i.e., thermal recycling in cement plants or deposited on landfills. Hence, reduction of overall RDF volumes is central to address the main challenges of urban waste management and decarbonisation of energy systems. In this course, HydroMine supports circular economy developments in mining regions in transition and advances sustainable hydrogen production strategies by repurposing existing mining infrastructure for RDF beneficiation. Techno-economic modelling was carried out in the project to quantify the economics of this technology by means of a dedicated, dynamic and modular simulation framework. It employs surrogate models using response functions and tables as well as empirical data correlations developed within the project, and was validated for regional operational scenarios at a Polish study area. For that purpose, the complete process chain from RDF pre-processing through gasification for synthesis gas production and cleaning, hydrogen as well as carbon monoxide and dioxide separation by membrane systems [1] and pressure-swing adsorption (PSA) is taken into account. Further unit stages comprise treatment of tail gases by plasma technologies and final product gas compression. All simulations integrate mass and energy balances with cost calculations at unit scale. Sensitivity analyses were embedded into the workflow to establish a comprehensive assessment of influential parameters. The established models are supporting the project in developing commercially viable waste-to-hydrogen strategies for stakeholders, investors, policymakers, and operators to accelerate the adoption of sustainable hydrogen production in the decarbonising energy transition landscape.

 

[1] Avruscio, E., Marsico, L., Brunetti, A., Theodorakopoulos, G. V., Karousos, D. S., Kempka, T., ... & Barbieri, G. (2026). Syngas hydrogen upgrading using green-based ultra-microporous carbon hollow fibre membranes. International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, 198, 152598. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2025.152598.

 

The present study has received funding from the EU RFCS - 2022, under grant agreement No. 101112629 (HydroMine).