Economic assessment of waste to chemical process
Waste to chemical process description, with particular focus on Ammonia and Urea production, and relative cost of production evaluation through economic assessment.
Topic
Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) can be a good alternative for fossil resources feedstock, conventionally used for chemical production. In particular, Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), which is an MSW's derived product with a higher calorific value. Via gasification technology, waste is converted into syngas, which can be then used for further chemical production. Syngas, directly produced from the gasification step, is converted in order to increase the content of H2 and CO2, which are then separated through PSA technology. Finally, conventional Ammonia production can be applied, then Urea (or AdBlue) can be obtained from NH3 and CO2 conversion. The use of waste as feedstock generally entails higher capital cost rather than in the case of conventional production; however, for a waste-based process, feedstock becomes an income, ensuring a competitive cost of production (COP).
About Alessia Borgogna
Born in 1993 in Pescara (Italy), she obtained a bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemical Engineering at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, respectively in 2014 and 2016.
She carried out an industrial PhD in collaboration with NextChem and University “La Sapienza” on the theme of “Waste to chemical process modeling”; PhD degree has been achieved and defended in February 2020.
Since November 2019 she started working at NextChem as Process Engineer, dealing with activities related to Waste to chemical process and two European projects concerning concentrated solar power and membrane reactor technologies.
She co-authored more than 10 papers and chapters, most of them on waste to chemical conversion, whereas the rest on mixing in microfluidic junction and methane cracking.
