ALBERT

Description: Integrated water electrolysis is a core principle of new process configurations for decarbonized heavy industries. Water electrolysis generates H2 and O2 and involves an exchange of thermal energy. In this manuscript, we investigate specific traditional heavy industrial processes that have previously been performed in nitrogen-rich air environments. We show that the individual process streams may be holistically integrated to establish new decarbonized industrial processes. In new process configurations, CO2 capture is facilitated by avoiding inert gases in reactant streams. The primary energy required to drive electrolysis may be obtained from emerging renewable power sources (wind, solar, etc.) which have enjoyed substantial industrial development and cost reductions over the last decade. The new industrial designs uniquely harmonize the intermittency of renewable energy, allowing chemical energy storage. We show that fully integrated electrolysis promotes the viability of decarbonized industrial processes. Specifically, new process designs uniquely exploit intermittent renewable energy for CO2 conversion, enabling thermal integration, H2 and O2 utilization, and sub-process harmonization for economic feasibility. The new designs are increasingly viable for decarbonizing ferric iron reduction, municipal waste incineration, biomass gasification, fermentation, pulp production, biogas upgrading, and calcination, and are an essential step forward in reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

Description: Nowadays, desalination continues to expand globally, which is one of the most effective solutions to solve the problem of the global drinking water shortage. However, desalination is not a fail-safe process and has many environmental and human health consequences. This paper investigated the desalination procedure of seawater with different technologies, namely, multi-stage flash distillation (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), and reverse osmosis (RO), and with various energy sources (fossil energy, solar energy, wind energy, nuclear energy). The aim was to examine the different desalination technologies’ effectiveness with energy sources using three assessment methods, which were examined separately. The life cycle assessment (LCA), PESTLE, and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods were used to evaluate each procedure. LCA was based on the following impact analysis and evaluation methods: ReCiPe 2016, IMPACT 2002+, and IPCC 2013 GWP 100a; PESTLE risk analysis evaluated the long-lasting impact on processes and technologies with political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors. Additionally, MCDA was based on the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to the Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method to evaluate desalination technologies. This study considered the operational phase of a plant, which includes the necessary energy and chemical needs, which is called “gate-to-gate” analysis. Saudi Arabia data were used for the analysis, with the base unit of 1 m3 of the water product. As the result of this study, RO combined with renewable energy provided outstanding benefits in terms of human health, ecosystem quality, and resources, as well as the climate change and emissions of GHGs categories.