W2E utilizes a small-scale waste gasification system for converting wastes to hydrogen. This includes the conversion of organic containing solid, liquid and gaseous wastes into uniform and clean burning synthesis gas as an intermediate step with its ultimate conversion to hydrogen as a final step. The process converts any solid, liquid, and gaseous organic wastes that have a fuel value; using air and water to create reactions, which in turn, produce uniform synthesis gas. This W2E solution is very flexible and can be applied to varied, locally generated wastes, such as forestry and agricultural residues, animal wastes, bacterial sludge, sewage sludge, municipal solid waste, food wastes, animal bovine parts, fungal material, industrial solid waste, waste tires, coal washing residue, petroleum coke, oil shale, even coal, peat and lignite, waste oil, industrial liquid wastes, residuals from petroleum refining and volatile organic compounds generated by the industrial processes. The W2E solution converts these wastes into gaseous fuels with the maximum conversion efficiency available in a gasification technology.

During the gasification of wastes, the majority of solid wastes break down into simple gases. The transformation of solid wastes into gaseous fuel is carried out in substoichiometric conditions. In this process, the air supply to the reactor is kept below that required for complete combustion, generating fuel gas from the solid wastes, which consists primarily of a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor, while the solid residue is comprised primarily of ash. After cleaning, this fuel gas can be used directly for producing electricity, steam, or combined heat and power.

For hydrogen production, this mixture of gases is further reacted with more steam to convert carbon monoxide into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen is then separated from the gas mixture by using a pressure swing adsorption (PSA) process to yield 99.999% pure hydrogen.

As a practical note, each person in the United States on an average generates about 4.5 pounds of waste per day, or over 1600 pounds per year, most of which is deposited in municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. For a town with a population of 10,000 inhabitants, the average daily production of wastes is in the range of 45,000 pounds per day, or approximately 1 ton per hour. This is a significant quantity. When this is added to the other wastes that are generated by nearby industries, including waste oils, waste tires, packaging materials, used gloves, and others, we are looking at least 2 tons per hour of an excellent resource for hydrogen. The wastes can be treated individually or as mixtures. Based on above numbers one can safely assume that 1 t/h or 24 t/d of mixed waste will easily generate over 2000 kg/d of hydrogen which is enough to service a fleet of 400 vehicles.