Biomass gasification combined with a novel heat integration design for sustainable energy supply programs: Comprehensive thermodynamic, environmental, and economic evaluations

The development of sophisticated multi-generation solutions that can concurrently produce electricity, heating, cooling, and hydrogen is required due to the increasing demand for efficient and sustainable energy systems. An environmentally friendly substitute for clean energy conversion is municipal solid waste (MSW), a resource that is widely accessible. However, previous biomass-based systems frequently have issues with efficiency, economic viability, and emissions. In order to overcome these obstacles, this research suggests and evaluates a novel MSW-based multigeneration system that combines gasification with a proton exchange membrane electrolyzer, a steam Rankine cycle, a gas turbine cycle, and an absorption refrigeration cycle. Aspen HYSYS was used to model the system, and all of its subsystems were verified against publicly available data. With the aid of parametric and multi-objective optimization, a thorough thermodynamic, environmental, and economic analysis was carried out. According to the results, the system produces 12.1 kg/h of hydrogen, 3303 kW of heating, 1166 kW of cooling, and 2484 kW of electricity. With significant exergy destruction in the gasifier (24.3 %) and burner (19 %), the base case efficiencies were 58.99 % (energy), 26.42 % (exergy), and 19.92 % (electrical). Optimization outperformed previous biomass-based studies by increasing exergy efficiency to 39.59 %, lowering product cost to 16.01 $/GJ, and minimizing CO₂ emissions to 0.435 kg/kWh. Plus, the optimized system outperformed earlier biomass-based studies. A promising option for sustainable urban energy infrastructure, the suggested system offers competitive costs, lower emissions, and improved urban energy security in addition to strong industrial applicability for waste-to-energy conversion.