Turning food waste into fuel: the South Korean solution

Hyundai has unveiled its waste-to-hydrogen technology, aiming to produce 30,000 tonnes of hydrogen per year, making it the largest in the world

What sounded like an incredibly simple idea has already become a reality in Chungju, South Korea. Hyundai has just completed building the world’s first plant capable of producing 1,100 pounds of hydrogen a day from 66 tons of food waste. At the H2 Mobility MEET Energy Environment Technology conference in Seoul from September 25 to 27, the company said it can now produce more than 33,000 tons per year, making it the world’s largest such facility. While many of us fret about appropriate organic-waste removal, South Korea is fuelling its cars with clean energy produced from food waste.

Organic waste converted into hydrogen

Organic waste-food scraps, sludge, and manure-are some of the biggest contributors to methane emissions, one of the most potent greenhouse gases. In Hyundai’s waste-to-hydrogen technology, this forms an opportunity to turn them into clean hydrogen fuel by just a simple yet complex process: breaking down organic waste by bacteria without the supply of oxygen to biogas and then converting it into hydrogen.

Take plastics, for instance. It’s not just a case of filling up the beaches or sea turtles mistakenly consuming bags. Only 9% of plastic is recycled, and non-recyclable plastic generally goes into landfills or incinerated with disastrous environmental consequences. Hyundai has come out with a technology that could ensure plastic gets converted to hydrogen. Non-recyclable plastic is transformed into hydrogen through different stages of heating and gasification of the material.

Equipped with this technology, the plant is expected to process up to 143,000 tons of plastic every year, producing 53 million pounds of hydrogen that will subsequently be supplied to power ships and fuel cell vehicles.

Advantages not excluding, but including a reduction of emissions, hydrogen transport cost reduction, and circular creation. Hopefully, this is going to be the future standard across the globe, and not only Finland will have it, while the United States of America is way behind.

Source: Hyundaimotorgroup – Hyundai