Scarce in Australia but prevalent internationally, waste to energy technically includes the extraction of energy sources such as biogas in a non-thermal manner but in this section we will just look at the thermal processes. They include combustion, gasification and pyrolysis.

 

Thermal processes are currently a high cost alternative to existing options from higher on the waste hierarchy, such as recycling or composting. It can take many forms depending on plant supplier and technology option but combustion or incineration and increasingly gasification are the most popular. Gasification involves much higher temperatures without combustion to produce syngas which can be used to generate energy more efficiently and leaving less residual slag.

 

Combustion has the advantage of being able to deal with a variety of feedstocks in a straightforward manner. Plastics, organics, paper and cardboard and any other combustible material from refuse derived fuel, municipal, commercial or industrial waste is reduced by approximately 90% with the residual leaving the plant as ash which is sometimes used in other manufacturing such as concrete blocks.

 

The first incinerator from 1874 Netherlands was called “The Destructor.”

 

Gasification operates at a higher temperatures in a controlled lower oxygen environment with pyrolysis operating in an oxygen free or inert atmosphere to carbonise the waste material into a variety of carbon based products such as char, tar, syngases or fuels to name a few. Its application for higher tonnage throughput in the waste industry is yet to be determined.

 

What the Wikipedia rabbit hole doesn’t tell us about thermal waste processing and waste to energy would be the for realm of experts.

 

Links

Wikipedia is excellent place

to develop an understanding

of Thermal Treatment.

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