RWE FUREC – for a greener hydrogen
RWE’s FUREC [Fuse Reuse Recycle (FUREC)] project aims to produce circular and green hydrogen from non-recyclable municipal solid waste in Limburg, the Netherlands.
The FUREC project lies in the idea that we can use non-recyclable municipal waste to make hydrogen. Through the designed installation, the residual waste will be processed and converted into green and circular hydrogen. This hydrogen will then be used at chemical factories on the Chemelot industrial estate so that they will use less natural gas and therefore produce less CO2 emissions.
Making hydrogen from household waste
The plan is to build a pre-treatment plan in Zevellen to convert non-recyclable municipal solid waste (MSW) into solid recovered fuel pellets. The plant will process about 700,000 tonnes of MSW per year, of which about 50% will be of biogenic origin (e.g. textiles, paper). This is equivalent to the amount of MSW produced by approximately two million people each year. The feedstock pellets from the pre-treatment plant will then be converted into hydrogen in a second RWE plant, which is to be built at the Chemelot industrial park.
The plant is expected to produce 54.000 tonnes of hydrogen per year. By using this hydrogen, Chemelot will be able to reduce its natural gas consumption by more than 28 million cubic meters per year. This will save around 400,000 tonnes of CO2 per year. The CO2 released during hydrogen production is captured and can be stored or possibly used as a raw material by industry in the future.
FUREC has received a 108 million euro grant from the EU’s Innovation Fund, which marks a key milestone for advancing the project. Their sustainable and circular goal, allowed them to be featured as a showcase in the HCH’s latest brochure, “Chemical Recycling in Circular Perspective”, which is now available digitally here ‘Chemical Recycling in Circular Perspective’