Dr. Peixiu Chen is an Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research focuses on the circular economy, life cycle assessment, and waste management.
The conversion of plastic waste into an energy feedstock for hydrogen production presents a sustainable pathway to generate clean energy while mitigating the environmental burdens of landfills and incineration. However, its feasibility as a feedstock for urban mobility decarbonization at the city scale remains largely unexplored. Hong Kong, as a densely populated metropolitan region facing substantial plastic waste challenges, presents an ideal case study to assess the viability of plastic-derived hydrogen for transportation applications. This study developed an innovative Waste-to-Wheel framework to assess the mitigation of environmental impacts on Hong Kong’s urban mobility through plastic-waste-to-hydrogen technology. Dynamic material flow analysis (dMFA) was used to quantify historical and future plastic waste generation, while life cycle assessment (LCA) was adopted to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with transportation in Hong Kong. The results showed that accumulated plastic waste in Hong Kong is projected to reach 9.6 million tonnes (Mt) between 2026 and 2050, with polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) polymers comprising 62.5% of the total, providing substantial feedstock for hydrogen production. Hydrogen demand in the transportation sector is estimated at 3,270.2 thousand tonnes of coal equivalent (tce) by 2050 under the hydrogen scenario. LCA results revealed that waste-based hydrogen production achieves the lowest global warming potential at 38.02 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2-eq) per kg hydrogen.
Dr. Peixiu Chen is an Assistant Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research focuses on the circular economy, life cycle assessment, and waste management.