Validation of refuse-derived fuel gasification for hydrogen-optimised synthesis gas production by numerical modelling

The HydroMine project investigates the development of a hydrogen-oriented municipal waste refinery that repurposes legacy mining infrastructure through an integrated gasification and gas separation concept. This contribution presents the results of a 3D thermo-hydraulic-chemical numerical model developed to simulate the gasification of Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) - produced from municipal solid waste - into a hydrogen-rich synthesis gas under laboratory-scale conditions, and thereby supporting the transition toward scalable reactor designs.

The fully coupled numerical model was developed to simulate fluid flow, heat transfer and chemical reactions within a packed RDF bed. Model calibration and validation were performed using experimental datasets from 3-m and 7-m laboratory reactor tests, covering the temporally dynamic oxidant and steam injection.

The simulations successfully reproduce the key synthesis gas components (CO₂, CO, and H₂), showing a good calibration results for the 3-m reactor data used for model calibration as well as the validation based on the 7-m reactor data across all injection regimes applied. This confirms that the applied reaction kinetics and thermo-hydraulic-chemical model formulation effectively represent the governing processes of RDF gasification in a packed bed.

The validated numerical model provides a physics-based foundation for further process optimisation and scale-up analyses to guide investigations in the HydroMine project, including commercial-scale reactor configurations, alternative operational strategies and varying compositions of the RDF feedstock. The findings support techno-economic and environmental feasibility as well as life-cycle assessments within the HydroMine project.

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