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Due to rapid movement of rural population to new regions and countries in order to find work and for better living conditions, population growth and economic development, there is gradual increase in production of waste and demand of electricity worldwide. According to World Bank statistics, the global Municipal Solid Waste generated was 1.3 billion tons in year 2012 and this is expected to increase above 2.2 billion tons per year by 2025. Due to lack of sites for waste disposal, it has become a serious environmental as well as health issue. Now various methods have been adopted for waste disposal. Among this, energy accessed from municipal solid waste is the most common practice adopted by developing countries. In addition, Waste to Energy and Energy from Waste technologies are used which include thermal and biological technologies. Gasification, pyrolysis and incineration are thermal technologies used in conversion of waste to energy. During these processes, syngas is produced which is used in combustion engine or turbines to generate electricity. Apart from this, biomethanation is also used in which biogas is produced. In this review article, we have discussed all the environmental and green methods used for the generation of energy from Municipal Solid Waste their advantages and drawbacks.

A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was conducted to evaluate the total environmental impact of state-of-the-art Waste-to-Energy (WtE) in Belgium, with respect to recovered energy utilization and addition of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). Four energy output scenarios were modelled on Umberto LCA software using primary data of mass and energy flows surrounding the six incinerators at the considered WtE plant, and predefined processes from the Ecoinvent 3.6 database. The normalized LCA results suggest that by utilizing all the recovered energy as steam, the WtE plant can avoid an equivalent annual environmental impact value of approximately 21200, 36800, 6700, 15800, 37000 and 6900 average European citizens in the impact categories ‘climate change’, ‘freshwater and terrestrial acidification’, ‘freshwater eutrophication, ‘photochemical ozone creation’ and ‘respiratory effects, inorganics’, ‘terrestrial eutrophication’, respectively. The ‘Electricity and Steam with CCS’ scenario resulted in the most avoided environmental impact in the impact category ‘climate change’. However, in all other impact categories, it resulted in less avoided environmental impact compared to the ‘Steam’ scenario. The comparative analysis showed that 19 out of 24 of the LCA results varied by more than 50% between two energy substitution models, thus quantifying the influence of energy substitution in LCA modelling. This study exemplifies the environmental benefit WtE technology can realize by substituting conventional energy production processes that are reliant on fossil resources, whilst performing its primary function that is reducing the volume of non-recyclable waste, destroying hazardous organic components it contains and recovering useful materials from it.

Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies convert municipal solid, and biomass wastes into affordable renewable heat and power energy. However, there are large uncertainties associated with using waste feed as a renewable energy source. This paper proposes a WTE management tool that provides forecasting and real-time optimization of power generated with the consideration of anomaly. The WTE management framework was designed based on a biological neural network, the Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) coupled with a dual-mode optimization procedure. The HTM model is inspired by the mechanism in the cerebral neocortex of the brain, providing anomaly identification and spatial-temporal prediction. In this work, the HTM-based smart energy framework is demonstrated in an industrial case study for the power generation of a waste-to-energy cogeneration system. HTM was compared with methods such as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Fourier Transformation Extrapolation (FTE), persistence forecasting, and was able to achieve mean squared error (MSE) of 0.08466% while giving 35450 Euro profit in half a year. Coupled with a novel dual-mode optimization procedure, HTM demonstrated 11% improvement with respect to only predictive optimization (with HTM) in estimated gross profit.

If appropriate landfill utilisation technologies were implemented, landfills on the African continent could be a source of energy for domestic and commercial use instead of their current status as environmental and health hazards. The present study reviewed 59 research publications authored from 2004 to 2021 on existing landfills technologies. These technologies are currently implemented in some African countries and are considered viable for developing landfill-based biogas generators. It emerged from the review that very little waste to energy conversion is happening in African landfills. The current technologies are too expensive for most African countries. However, it is clear that there is potential to develop landfill-based biogas generators that are optimal for the peculiarities of African landfills and dumpsites.

This paper investigates the activity of a multi-utility that uses Waste-to-Energy (WtE) and cogeneration (COG) plants to provide services in the heat and in the electricity markets. We assume that it employs WtE and COG units to participate in the day-ahead and real-time electricity markets and, with the support of heat-only units, it satisfies the heat demand of local district heating areas (DHAs). We use stochastic programming to develop three linked problems that describe the sequence of the decision process regarding the operation of WtE and COG facilities: (i) the first problem considers the point of view of the multi-utility that defines the day-ahead and the real-time heat scheduling of its plants and the maximum amount of electricity that WtE and COG units can offer in the day-ahead electricity market, taking into account the uncertainty of the real-time heat demand; (ii) the second problem models the day-ahead electricity market cleared by the Power Exchange, where the electricity dispatch of WtE and COG units is limited by the maximum power offers defined in step (i); and (iii) given the heat and power schedules respectively determined in steps (i) and (ii), the last problem describes the activity of theTransmission System Operator that re-dispatches WtE and COG outputs and decides their participation in the reserves and the real-time electricity markets, incorporating uncertain electricity demand and renewable power generation. Italian data are taken to investigate the operation of the WtE and COG plants under different assumptions. A reference analysis shows that these facilities obtain stable revenues from the heating market, but those from the electricity markets are very variable and mainly derives from reserve procurement. In addition, we perform two sensitivity analyses: in the first one, where we consider high natural gas and CO$$_2$$ 2 prices, the use of WtE and COG units increases to substitute gas-fueled plants with a consequent increase of their profits; in the second one, which describes an electricity market with a high renewable penetration, the activity of these facilities becomes more irregular because of the augmented penetration of intermitted renewable generation.

The concept of circular economy supports mitigation of climate change and other environmental pressures to the planet. Circulating materials in anthropogenic processes come with the risk of accumulating hazardous substances and compounds. In this concept, waste incineration or waste-to-energy (WtE) is a necessary technology to remove these compounds from the life cycle. In this mini-review, contaminants of major importance in the flue gas from waste incineration plants and their environmental impact are discussed. Air pollution of WtE is often seen as the most relevant environmental impact of this treatment option. The emission values parameter set for different countries is presented and compared. The most stringent legally set of emission values could be found in parts of Europe and South Korea. Japan also permits similar strict values when authorising individual incineration plants. In North America, the values are partially less strict as the best available technologies in Europe suggest being possible. Emerging economies, such as India and China, have shown efforts to improve their environmental protection standards but still have room to improve. This could be set in relation to other industrial emitting processes and therefore could be used to assess the relevance of this industry sector to the national emission inventories.

The burning of agricultural residue in open fields poses a serious environmental threat that adversely affects human health and the ecosystem. Overall, this study aims to quantify emissions because...

The use of pyrolytic oil (WTPO) obtained from waste vehicle tires in Turkey is evaluated and encouraged within the scope of YEKDEM (Turkey Renewable Energy Resources Support Mechanism). In order to benefit from this incentive, WTPO must be used as the main fuel in diesel engines. For this reason, in this study, unlike all other studies in the literature, the use of WTPO at a high rate was examined. The effects of biodiesel and WTPO mixtures containing high WTPO on engine performance and emissions were investigated. The experiments were carried out at 2800 rpm engine speed, where the maximum power was obtained, and at 4 different loads as 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. When the obtained results are examined. The lowest brake thermal efficiency (BTE) value was obtained in P100 fuel at 25% load and its value was 16.21%. Brake specific fuel consumption (BSFC) data were similar for all test fuels under the same load conditions. Based on the heat release rate and in-cylinder pressure data, it was noted that biodiesel reduced the ignition delay time. The maximum in-cylinder temperature was 1723.4 K and the maximum exhaust temperature was 590 degrees C with the use of P60B40 fuel. The lowest nitrogen oxides (NOx) value results were obtained at 100% load. Hydrocarbon (HC) emissions decreased from 1.13 g/kWh to 0.13 g/kWh for P100 fuel as load increased form 25% to 100%. All these results show that although the biodiesel additive slightly worsened the emissions, positive results were obtained for the performance data.

The paper comprehensively links the solution of the processing municipal solid waste (MSW) problem with the production of energy, the development of renewable energy and the greenhouse gas emissions reduction. There was determined being based on the analysis of global trends in the field of MSW management that the generation of energy from waste, the production of non-recyclable fractions of renewable energy on the basis of processing is an important direction of a low carbon economy and reducing the burden on the environment. There was carried out an ecological and economic assessment of the main technologies of thermal processing of MSW. The contribution of the implementation of investment projects for the construction of waste energy plants to the implementation of Russia's national goals in the field of waste management is shown in the Moscow region and Sochi. Taking into account the existing foreign experience, measures for financing and supporting investment projects for energy waste disposal were proposed: the introduction of a green tariff for MSW-to-energy processing facilities; the use of an investment incentive mechanism based on capacity supply agreements (PDMS); the implementation of an extended producer responsibility mechanism; state support measures; the attraction of green bonds; the use of equity and project financing methods, and quotas trading in greenhouse gas emissions. The practical significance of the research is to substantiate the possibility and necessity of developing and implementing investment projects for energy waste disposal, energy generation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 requires a step-change in resource management, and the utilisation of organic waste is currently an untapped opportunity in Latin America. This study carries out a quantitative and qualitative assessment of organic waste-to-energy potentials for the Chilean context. First, it produces a comprehensive quantification of organic waste, including annual crop residues, horticulture residues, livestock manure and OFMSW by region; then it estimates the energy potential of these bioresources; and finally, it conducts a series of stakeholder interviews determining barriers to greater waste-to-energy utilisation. The results show that the total bioenergy potential from waste is estimated at 78 PJ/yr (3.3% of annual energy demand), being livestock manure (41%) and annual crop residues (28%) the main sources, arising mostly from three regions. The stakeholder elicitation concluded that financial, technical, and institutional barriers prevent waste utilisation, highlighting the needs to address elevated investment costs and high reliance on landfilling practices, which together with public policies could enable the full exploitation of these resources to ensure energy security and resource efficiency. This research was supported by the Sustainable Gas Institute at Imperial College London and by Universidad de Santiago de Chile through the DICYT (Dirección de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica) grant 021812GL. X. Schmidt Rivera is supported by the Institutional QR Global Challenges Research Fund. F. Jalil-Vega acknowledges the support of ANID through Complex Engineering Systems Institute PIA/BASAL AFB180003, and through ANID/FONDAP/15110019 SERC-Chile.

The bio-wastes pyrolysis is a waste to energy strategy that converts bio-wastes into valuable products (bio-char, bio-oil) with wide use in the agri-food sector. However, limited efforts are paid to the investigation of its environmental sustainability: in this context, the study contributes the need towards the assessment of a wide range of environmental impacts for the pyrolysis process of different types of bio-wastes under different operating conditions. The study estimates the potential environmental impacts related to bio-char production from the pyrolysis of several different agro-industrial residues and different temperatures and identifies the process “hot spots”. The analysis is carried out through the life cycle assessment methodology. The functional unit for the analysis is 1 MJ of thermal energy potentially released during the complete combustion of bio-char obtained from the pyrolysis process. The study highlights that, under the examined conditions, the type of biomass affects the environmental impacts of the pyrolysis process more than the peak pyrolysis temperature. Among the biomasses tested, bio-char obtained from orange peels has the lower environmental impacts, with an average percentage difference of about 16% compared to bio-char obtained from olive tree trimmings that has the worst environmental performance. For each biomass, the impacts associated to bio-char obtained with different operational temperatures have percentage differences in general lower than 5%. A contribution analysis shows that the electricity consumed during the operational phase is responsible for the largest impacts in all the examined impact categories, followed by bio-wastes transportation. In detail, the contribution of the electricity to the total impact ranges from minimum values of about 44% (for cumulative energy demand) up to 91% (for terrestrial eutrophication), while transportation contributions range from a minimum of about 4% (for terrestrial and marine eutrophication) to 36% for mineral, fossil and renewable resource depletion. Therefore, the use of more energy efficient processes and technologies and the diffusion of distributed pyrolysis systems near farms can significantly improve the environmental performance of the system examined.

Amending municipal solid waste incineration with carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a new approach that can reduce the climate change impacts of waste incineration. This study provides a detailed analysis of the consequences of amending the new Amager Bakke incinerator in Copenhagen (capacity: 600,000 tonnes waste per year) with CCS as a post-combustion technology. Emphasis is on the changes in the energy flows and outputs as well as the environmental performance of the plant; the latter is assessed by life cycle assessment. Amending Amager Bakke with CCS of the chosen configuration reduces the electricity output by 50% due to steam use by the capture unit, but introducing post-capture flue gas condensation increases the heat output utilized in the Copenhagen district heating system by 20%. Thus, the overall net energy efficiency is not affected. The CCS amendment reduces the fossil CO2 emissions to 40 kg CO2 per tonne of incinerated waste and stores 530 kg biogenic CO2 per tonne of incinerated waste. Potential developments in the composition of the residual waste incinerated or in the energy systems that Amager Bakke interacts with, do not question the benefits of the CCS amendment. In terms of climate change impacts, considering different waste composition and energy system scenarios, introducing CCS reduces in average the impact of Amager Bakke by 850 kg CO2-equivalents per tonne of incinerated waste. CCS increases the environmental impacts in other categories, but not in the same order of magnitude as the savings introduced within climate change.

The equity structure of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects reflects the interests of the public and private sectors, and concerns the economic, social and environmental performance of projec...

The paper presents the study focused on the application of poultry manure as an energy resource. Such solution is expected to bring limitation of fossil fuels exploitation, reduction of poultry farming costs, as well as sustainable waste to energy conversion. The study was performed by the use of a prototype gasification installation. The study involved analysis of the outlet gas composition, calorific value and flue gas emission. Measured heat of combustion of dry poultry manure is comparable to wood or straw. It contains relatively large amount of ash (9.11%), volatile components (78.4%) and low amount of sulphur. The chemical composition of obtained ash, shows low contribution of components elevating the melting temperature and high contribution of components decreasing the melting temperature, which indicates slagging tendency. The calorific value of the process gas, ranges from 6.47 MJ/m3 to 9.47 MJ/m3. Measured emission values match the applicable standards, except dust content. Performed studies indicated that poultry manure is a valuable energy resource, which allows to reduce the use of fossil fuels for the needs of poultry farming. Obtained results are essential for the design and operation of gasification installation in order to avoid operation problems associated with slagging of the gasification chamber.

Waste-to-Energy Technologies (WtE) have been widely used in European countries, in Japan, in some US cities, and have been growing in China. Currently, in Brazil, there are no WtE power plants in operation, but there are studies on the feasibility of this technology. The Systematic Bibliographic Review (SBR) presented in this mini-review article appears as a result of a process of prospecting documents in the following databases: Science Direct, Web of Science and Scopus. The purpose was to map the articles of the last five years on the applications of WtE technologies in Brazil. From the selection of articles relevant to the research, these documents were registered and cataloged, as well as their qualitative and quantitative analyses. During the systematization process, it was possible to raise hypotheses about which professionals have been working the most on this topic, the journals in which these researches are being published and the keywords most addressed for these case studies. In addition, it was possible to identify the characteristics of the publications related to the theme, the central axes of analysis of the studies and the primary techniques studied for the Brazilian reality. It was also considered part of the results of the present work, the systematization of the main definitions of WtE, the presentation of the main WtE technologies operations, and the exposition of the benefits and impacts of each of these technologies.

This paper is included in the Proceedings of the 16th Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference (GHGT-16), organized 23-27 October 2022 in Lyon, France This work introduces a systematic design procedure for CO2 absorption-based processes using as solvent the mixture of AMP-PZ. We propose to minimize the total CO2 avoided cost. We make the assumption that the capture plant is retrofitted to an existing industrial plant whose operation and production are not changed. Under this assumption, we can define the total CO2 avoided cost by using a method which considers the discounted cash flow resulted from implementing the capture unit. We consider a standard absorber-desorber process configuration, and we model the process in AspenPlus®. We systematically identify the degrees of freedom available for design, and we divided these into degrees of freedom used internally in the simulation in a Design-Specification block (e.g., solvent flowrate and reboiler duty), and degrees of freedom available to an external derivative-free optimizer (e.g., absorber packing height, AMP and PZ composition, and lean solvent loading). As a case study we consider a Waste-to-Energy plant.

Waste-to-energy is considered as an effective way to simultaneously digest the municipal waste and generate useful power. Steam Rankine cycle is conventionally adopted for solid-waste incineration ...

Municipal solid waste is typically managed in developing countries through various disposal methods, such as sanitary landfills or dumpsites. Alternatively, waste to energy (WTE) systems have been recently adopted to provide sustainable waste management and diversify the energy mix. The abundance of remotely sensed datasets and derivatives, along with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, can offer an effective solution for WTE site selection. In this study, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP)-based framework supported by multiple machine learning algorithms (gradient boosted tree (GBT), decision tree (DT), and support vector machines (SVMs)) was established to explore the optimum location for WTE facilities. Various social, legal, environmental, economic, morphological, and land cover parameters were considered under 11 thematic geospatial raster layers. The proposed framework was applied to the 1.5-million-capita city of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. A novel approach was developed to incorporate Gaussian dispersion modeling for the expected air pollution emissions from a WTE facility. The results showed that the accuracy performance sequence of the algorithms was 94.6, 93.9, and 91.8% for GBT, DT, and SVM, respectively. It was found that the distance from existing landfills had the most critical impact on the optimum location of the WTE facility, followed by the distance from coastline and elevation. The AHP consistency check revealed an acceptable overall criteria consistency index and the ratio of 0.0344 and 0.019, respectively. The results showed that 16.6% of Sharjah was considered extremely highly suitable areas. This research supports decision-makers in developing local guidelines for siting WTE facilities and determining the most suitable locations for such projects.

This paper reports the first known comprehensive survey of combustion operating conditions across the wide range of municipal waste-to-energy facilities in the U.S. The survey was conducted in a step-wise fashion. Once the population of 188 units operating at over 70 facilities was defined, this population was stratified by distinguishing characteristics of combustion technology. Stratum-level estimates for operating conditions were determined from data collected in the survey. These stratum-level values were weighted by corresponding design capacity share and combined to infer national-level operating parameter estimates representative of the overall population. Survey results show that typical municipal waste-to-energy combustion operating conditions in the U.S. are (1) furnace temperature above 1160 °C, (2) gas residence time above 2.4 s, (3) exit gas concentrations of nearly 10% for oxygen (dry basis), and (4) over 16% for moisture. These operating parameter values can serve as benchmarks for laboratory-scale studies representative of municipal waste-to-energy combustion as typically practiced in the U.S.

Rapidly increasing solid waste generation and energy demand are two critical issues of the current century. Plasma gasification, a type of waste-to-energy (WtE) technology, has the potential to produce clean energy from waste and safely destroy hazardous waste. Among plasma gasification technologies, microwave (MW)-driven plasma offers numerous potential advantages to be scaled as a leading WtE technology if its processes are well understood and optimized. This paper reviews studies on modeling experimental microwave-induced plasma gasification systems. The system characterization requires developing mathematical models to describe the multiphysics phenomena within the reactor. The injection of plasma-forming gases and carrier gases, the rate of the waste stream, and the operational power heavily influence the initiation of various chemical reactions that produce syngas. The type and kinetics of the chemical reactions taking place are primarily influenced by either the turbulence or temperature. Navier–Stokes equations are used to describe the mass, momentum, and energy transfer, and the k-epsilon model is often used to describe the turbulence within the reactor. Computational fluid dynamics software offers the ability to solve these multiphysics mathematical models efficiently and accurately.

In India, rate of waste generation varies from 0.12-0.60 kg/capita/day. This paper lists established solid waste management practices in India by providing the latest factual data from various reports and surveys being conducted in India in the period 2016 and beyond. This paper also gives an insight into some of the recent studies that have been in India related to solid waste and waste to energy technologies by describing their study area along with mentioning their critical observations.

In recent years, there are increasing environmental issue due to the construction waste especially in Malaysia. Timber waste has covered two thirds percentage of the construction waste. Hence, potential on construction timber waste recycling to energy specifically in Malaysia under the states with solid waste managed by Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Corporation (SWCorp) is being studied. The research objectives are to investigate the improvement factors and current practices by the timber waste contractors in Malaysia. The study was conducted using a mixed method research approach to SWCorp officer, timber waste contractors and timber recycling center representatives to discover in depth the timber waste recycling to energy in Malaysia. The findings for the improvement factors from the current practices are authority enforcement, revenue from selling the timber waste, limitation of landfill spaces and public awareness. It is targeted that the research findings and recommendations will be useful for the waste authority, timber waste contractors and the public to reduce the timber waste being sent to landfill.

The present study utilized the catalytic pyrolysis method for extracting oil from waste high-density polyethylene (WHDPE) plastics. Experiments were carried out with D70H30 (diesel-70%, WHDPE oil-3...

In this study, raw biomass feedstock characterization of greenhouse post-harvest residues of tomato, pepper, and eggplant has been investigated using the wastes of stem and leaves as a source of energy gained from palletization. The characterization was compared to both sawdust and the relevant ISO and EU pellet standards. The proximate and ultimate analyses results of all the tested feedstock materials have proven to be successful candidates for pelletizing and combustion process. The bulk density of tomato, pepper, and eggplant pellets were found to be 568 kg/m3, 575 kg/m3, 589 kg/m3, respectively, and the higher heating values of these produces were found to be 17.25 MJ/kg, 17.45 MJ/kg, and 17.80 MJ/kg, respectively. Based on the results, it is possible to generate 10 tons of waste per hectare capable of producing almost 50 MWh of heating energy. Furthermore, this waste could generate more than 6.5 tons of CO2 per hectare. The study results suggest that the heating energy potential and the amount of CO2 emitted could be used in greenhouses to support photosynthesis during low temperature and low solar radiation periods.

Oman has witnessed a rapid growth in the generation of municipal solid waste due to the ever-increasing urbanization and expanding population. This escalation in the generation of municipal solid waste has burdened the existing waste management infrastructure and increased the carbon footprint of the sector. Therefore, the need of an integrated waste management system is rising in Oman and establishing waste-to-energy technologies is becoming an absolute necessity. Therefore, this study investigates the financial feasibility of incineration, gasification and anaerobic digestion technologies in the Muscat governorate of Oman. The potential cost and revenue streams during the economic life of waste-to-energy plants are estimated to evaluate the profitability of projects by a set of financial parameters. Incineration has emerged as the most profitable strategy with the positive net present value of 255 million USD compared to 169 and 97.9 million USD for anaerobic digestion and gasification, respectively. Furthermore, incineration offers higher energy potential at lower cost (0.06 USD/kWh) than gasification (0.11 USD/kWh) and AD (0.16 USD/kWh). However, AD plant turns out more favorable in terms of profitability index, payback period, and internal rate of return and levelized cost of waste, mainly due to the low investment cost. This study concludes that incineration stands out among all options because of the higher profitability, waste treating capacity, energy generation and carbon footprint savings. The sensitivity analysis reveals that change in carbon credit allowance affects the profitability of all waste-to-energy plants, whereas electricity tariff and capital investment affect only incineration and gasification.

This study aimed to develop Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) with high Calorific Value (CV) from mixed hazardous wastes and biomass. The potential utilization of newly developed RDF in cement production as a fuel substitute for coal has been investigated. In this work, five types of mixed hazardous industrial wastes (rubber waste, mixed waste, paint sludge, palm oil sludge and wastewater treatment plant sludge) and three biomass types (sawdust, paddy husk and empty fruit bunch) have been used. The newly developed RDF developed in this study has a CV of approximately 18,652 kJ/kg, and its volatile matter, fixed carbon and ash content of 32 %, 40 % and 28 %, respectively. The study is revealed that substituting 5 ton/hour of RDF in the coal only emits about 301 mg/m3 of NOx, which is within the regulatory limits in Malaysia. Besides, the emission of heavy metals, including Zinc, Arsenic, Lead, Copper, Antimony, and Chromium, was also within the regulatory limits. RDF in cement manufacturing kilns is economically and environmentally attractive, as the combustion of RDF allows for a reduction of about 2.25 kg of CO2 per kg compared to coal. In terms of the efficiency of clinker and stack gas emission values, the substitution of 15 % of RDF to the coal at a feeding rate of 5 ton per hour in cement production did not cause any processing and quality issues in the existing cement production process. The result revealed that substituting 15 % of RDF with the coal in 5000 ton/day cement plant may reduce 112.8 USD/hour in operating cost. Additionally, 140 USD/hour of net saving could be achieved by saving 2.52 ton/hour of CO2 emitted from the cement production. Overall, the results concluded that RDF is a very promising resource recovery and waste treatment option for hazardous waste management.

This paper presents a multi-objective optimization (MOO) of waste-to-energy (WtE) to investigate optimized solutions for thermal, economic, and environmental objectives. These objectives are represented by net efficiency, total cost in treating waste, and environmental impact. Integration of the environmental objective is conducted using life cycle assessment (LCA) with endpoint single score method covering direct combustion, reagent production and infrastructure, ash management, and energy recovery. Initial net efficiency of the plant was 16.27% whereas the cost and environmental impacts were 75.63 €/ton-waste and −1.21 × 108 Pt/ton-waste, respectively. A non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is applied to maximize efficiency, minimize cost, and minimize environmental impact. Highest improvement for single objective is about 13.4%, 10.3%, and 14.8% for thermal, economic, and environmental, respectively. These improvements cannot be made at once since the objectives are conflicting. These findings highlight the significance role of decision makers in assigning weight to each objective function to obtain the optimal solution. The study also reveals different influence among decision variable, waste input, and marginal energy sources. Finally, this paper underlines the versatility of using MOO to improve WtE performance regarding the thermal, economic, and environmental aspects without requiring additional investment.

Sustainable energy development had been signified as the pathways for the global energy transition, that drive important changes in how energy is being generated, transmitted, and consumed. The concept of Circular Economy (CE) has been proposed to address the environmental problem by minimizing the resource inputs and emission generation, reuse the waste and refuse from the conventional production process to obtain a further benefit. However, the contribution of CE to sustainable energy development and its link to Quintuple Helix (QH) elements is still ambiguous. This paper intends to fulfil this gap by examining the five main elements of the QH that contribute to the CE ecosystem, namely academia, companies, environment, government, and society. Innovative technologies from sludge management in urban wastewater sectors are discussed as the case study. A framework relating the QH with CE and innovation are proposed for future research. Practical recommendations associated with CE and sustainable energy policies are also provided.

The gas produced by gasification is more versatile than the original solid biomass and can be applied as raw material for chemical industry and as fuel for the electrical and thermal energy production. Small gasification plants are being considered as an option for electrical energy generation in remote areas where agriculture wastes can be found easily. In this way, the aim of this work was to evaluate the characteristics of the gas composition of co-gasification using pine pellets and blends with agricultural wastes. The experiments were carried out in duplicate in a pilot scale fixed bed downdraft gasifier, GEK Power Pallet 20kW. It was performed experimental runs with 100 % pine pellets, 80 % pine pellets and 20 % agriculture wastes, and 80 % pine pellets with 15.4 % agriculture wastes and 4.6 % of glycerol used as an agglutinant agent. The samples were analyzed by GC-FID/TCD. The moisture of different feedstocks varied between 8.00 and 10.88. The results of the produced gas show an average composition of 37.45% CO and 15.79% H2, and LHV 7,155 kJ/kg for gasification of 100 % pine pellets. While the mixture of pine pellets and agriculture wastes resulted in a gas with 32.13% CO and 20.10% H2, and LHV of 6,663.4 kJ/kg. When added glycerol, the gas composition to CO was 20.52 % and to H2 11.21 % with LHV of 4,507.4 kJ/kg. The results indicate that the gasifier is compatible with the mixture of agricultural residues and pines pellets in co-gasification.

Implementation of waste-to-energy (WtE) incineration has recently surged in developing countries, but the drivers of this growth and the constraints on WtE project sustainability in local contexts remain incompletely understood. We aimed to identify these drivers and constraints in developing countries using Hanoi Capital, Vietnam, as a case study. Face-to-face interviews and a field survey were employed to investigate stakeholders’ opinions and consolidate WtE-related information to identify drivers. The main drivers were the current limited treatment capability, local opposition to current strategies, introduction of legislative incentives and landfilling restrictions, the Hanoi government’s involvement, the example set by the existing WtE plant in Can Tho, increasing waste generation with increasing land scarcity, competitive tipping fees, and introduction of a public–private-partnership model. Some of these identified drivers eliminated historical Vietnamese WtE barriers. Constraints were determined by evaluating the interview results and local data from the field survey. These constraints had legal aspects (e.g., overlapping agency responsibilities), as well as financial (e.g., low tipping fees), technical/technological (e.g., unsorted waste), environmental (e.g., lack of stringent flue gas controls), and social (public opposition to plants) aspects. The evidence presented here could help secure waste treatment capacity through sustainable WtE incineration in other fast-growing cities.

Waste treatment is an important part of the future global energy portfolio. Challenges associated with implementing energy recovery technology at waste treatment sites include interwoven technical, economic, and policy considerations. This work focuses on the tradeoff of input waste energy content to output electrical power, i.e. efficiency for waste-to-energy systems. Also presented is an approach for conversion technology selection based on characteristics of the waste stream, energy content of biogas generated from anaerobic waste treatment, and commercial applicability of five major prime movers across a large gradient of power output including: gas turbines, steam turbines, microturbines, reciprocating internal combustion engines, and solid oxide fuel cells. An efficiency model developed from fundamental thermodynamic principles is used to estimate the amount of power available from a waste treatment site, using data from a comprehensive data set of prime mover characteristics. A case study is presented, illustrating prime mover selection for three types of waste systems in Minnesota, United States: wastewater treatment plants, landfill sites and dairy farms. The results show that gas and steam turbines are recommended for large-scale systems with millions of gallons per day of wastewater generation, up to 60% of waste treatment sites. For small-scale systems applicable to distributed waste treatment and wastewater treatment facilities processing less than 10,000 gallons of water per day, fuel cells are recommended solely based on their high efficiency. Given the potential growth of decentralized waste-to-energy, the scarcity of highly efficient, affordable and fuel flexible power generation options necessitates further innovation in small-scale prime mover technologies.

In South Africa, the burden placed on energy due to the rise in its demand coupled with the huge amount of untreated waste that ends up in landfills has called for the quest for sustainable energy ...

In dealing with waste management problems in Bekasi City, the Bekasi City Government has implemented waste management innovations by involving the community's role through the Program for Improvement of Household Waste Segregation Behavior, Revitalization of "Smart Waste Management", and "Waste to Energy" Conversion in Bekasi City. The purpose of this article is to find out how to implement the Program to Improve Household Waste Segregation Behavior, “Smart Waste Management” Revitalization, and “Waste to Energy” Conversion in Bekasi City. The author uses a qualitative descriptive method with data collection techniques using literature study, observation, interviews and documentation at the Bekasi City Environmental Service and the Patriot Main Waste Bank. Data Analysis Techniques Using interactive model analysis using the theory of Policy Implementation” according to Charles O. Jones which “consists of three activities, namely “Organization, Interpretation, and Application. The results of the study indicate that the implementation of the Policy for the Improvement of Household Waste Segregation Behavior, Revitalization of "Smart Waste Management", and "Waste to Energy" Conversion in Bekasi City is not optimal in organizational activities and applications. This can be seen from the limited resources owned by the Bekasi City Government and community participation which is still not optimal in presenting Waste Banks in every RW.

Purpose Kumasi Metropolis, the second-largest city in Ghana is known to be bewildered with challenges relating to waste management. As a means of solving the waste management challenge, several suggestions are often made for the establishment of a waste-to-energy plant to manage the disposal of waste and generation of income. There have been no studies conducted to determine how economically viable such plants will be. This study aims to examine the economic viability of waste-to-energy generation in the Kumasi Metropolis to find out how economically viable such an approach will be. Design/methodology/approach To achieve this, a simple debt-equity ratio business model based on discounted cash flow technique was applied to estimate the internal rate of returns (IRR) as a measure of the economic viability and profitability of a modelled 50 MWH waste-energy generation plant in the Kumasi Metropolis. The analysis was performed using the RetScreen Expert Software. Findings The results show that the IRR and benefits cost ratio of the facility were 36% and 5.8%, respectively, indicating high levels of profitability and economic viability. The study concludes that waste-to-energy generation will be an economically viable venture in the Kumasi Metropolis. Practical implications It is, however, important for users of the findings of this study to take caution of the fact that the various assumptions although based on current knowledge and expert opinion may vary with time; therefore, the sensitive analysis on price and costs should always be considered. Practically, this study will contribute to solving the waste management situation in most cities, as well as generating revenue and helping close the energy deficit most developing countries are grabbling with. Originality/value The unique contribution of the study to knowledge is that it has professed an alternative analytical and methodological approach to measuring the financial viability of waste-to-energy plants in situations where there is none in the geographical jurisdiction of the proposed project.

The control of HCl emission in waste-to-energy (WtE) facilities is a challenging flue gas treatment problem: the release of HCl from waste combustion is highly variable in time and the HCl emission standards are typically far lower in WtE than in any other industry. Traditional process control approaches in dry HCl removal processes are generally based on feeding a large excess of solid reactants to the system, to ensure robustness and a wide safety margin in the compliance to environmental regulations. This results in the production of a high amount of unreacted sorbents, strongly increasing the generation of solid wastes that need to be disposed. In the present study, an approach was developed to allow the implementation of improved control strategies for dry HCl abatement systems in operating full-scale facilities. Its objective is the reduction of the reactant feed and the waste production, while still providing an adequate safety margin for emission compliance. The approach was based on the reproduction of the behaviour of the real system in a virtual console that allows the extensive testing of alternative control strategies, limiting the need of demanding test-runs at the real plant. A test case on an Italian WtE facility demonstrated the capability of a control logic tuned in the virtual console to achieve a 13% reduction in the consumption of reactants and generation of process residues, with unchanged HCl removal efficiency. The results evidence the wide opportunities for optimisation of dry acid gas removal systems, in particular when multistage systems are implemented.

Despite long-term practical experience with waste incineration plants, their operation under the conditions for which they were designed pose challenges, mainly due to the heterogeneous composition of the waste feed. Within the framework of the present paper, the operation of 6 waste incineration plants (five grate and one fluidized bed incinerator) have been analysed in terms of hourly steam production, waste throughput, auxiliary fuel consumption and air surplus over one year. The results reveal that the operation of the majority of the plants was negatively influenced during times of waste delivery. Reductions in steam production and waste throughput of up to 3% were observed for these times in comparison to periods without any delivery of waste. Furthermore, an increase in air surplus and auxiliary fuels consumption (up to a factor of 2) was noticed, both resulting in lower environmental performance. The results further indicate that incineration plants receiving their waste via trucks are more prone to impairments of performance than plants supplied via train delivery. This observation might be explained by the fact that train delivery requires a transfer of the waste from truck to train, which is typically associated with a mixing of the waste. Based on the observed impairment of the operation during waste delivery times, the related economic loss for plant operators is estimated to be several 100,000 Euros per year. Hence, in order to improve the performance of waste incineration plants, a better mixing of the waste, in particular during times of waste delivery, is recommended.

Coconut agro-industry in the western region of Thailand generates a large amount of residues. This study investigated the energy production potential of discarded coconut petioles, with a focus on co-gasification with refuse-derived fuel (RDF). Gasification tests involving petioles, RDFs and their mixtures (25%, 50%, 75% or 100% by weight) were conducted in a laboratory-scale fixed bed reactor. Fuel samples of 5 g were gasified at 700°C–900°C for 60 minutes, using simulated air (79% N2 to 21% O2, by volume) as a gasifying agent. Gasification of petioles generated producer gas with lower heating values, estimated at 0.43–0.75 MJ Nm−3, while RDF produced 0.92–1.39 MJ Nm−3. Adding greater quantities of RDF to the fuel mixture resulted in an increase in the heating value of the producer gas and cold gas efficiency. The operating temperatures and gasifying-agent flow rates affected the efficiency of process differently, depending on the fuel composition. However, the maximum cold gas efficiency from both fuels was detected in tests conducted at 800°C. In co-gasification and pure refuse-derived-fuel tests, higher temperatures and gasifying-agent flow rates led to outputs with higher energy yields. Our findings suggested that co-gasification of petiole is a viable alternative waste-treatment technology for this region.

The materials and information characterizing the state of the modern world gasification industry of various raw materials and its technologies for obtaining a wide range of energy carriers and chemical products are presented. The main trends and prospects for the further development of gasification and ways to solve the associated problems are reflected. Bibl. 18, Fig. 3, Tab. 5.

The design study concerns the creation of a waste-to-energy conversion plant in the City of Muntinlupa to lessen the amount of non-recyclable municipal solid wastes that ends up in the landfill. Using the developed criteria, the cluster that can be used are the biodegradable and residual waste portions of the municipal solid wastes. In consideration of the processes for power generation, Rankine cycle was seen as the best alternative powerplant type to use the biogas and synthetic gas produced from the biodigester and pyrolyzer, respectively. The powerplant project has a capacity of 8.6 MW, a return of investment of 12%, an internal rate of return of 19%, and a payback period of 5 years.

Landfill is a popular method of waste disposal in many countries due to its relatively low of costs of operation. The offensive aspect of the method is improper removal or disposal of the waste, which has resulted in avoidable sicknesses, diseases and preventable deaths. Carbon dioxide and methane are the two main gases emitted from landfill sites; municipal solid waste issue accounts for almost 5% of total greenhouse gas emissions and methane from landfills accounts for 12% of the total quantity of global methane emissions. Landfills can be put to sustainable use by employing it to produce energy from waste whenever is feasible and it has the capacity to generate revenue. Furthermore, many advanced waste treatment technologies have been developed which received commendable attention in developed countries and are evolving in developing countries. Landfill gas-to-energy is viable economically and for control of methane emissions and effective management of time, costs and quality with minimum risks to humans and the environment.

The eutrophication process, caused by the uncollected seaweed and macroalgae, is a relevant and ongoing ecological issue. In case this biomass is collected from the seashores, it could be used as a potential feedstock for recovery of higher-added-value energy products. This paper aims to investigate the seaweed perspective of uses as a potential feedstock in the slow-pyrolysis process, using microthermal analysis combined with Fourier transform infrared spectrometry and experiments at the laboratory scale at different temperatures with two different types of zeolite catalysts. The primary investigation was performed using a micro-thermal analyser, and the results revealed that seaweed thermally decomposes in two stages, at 250 and 700 °C, while the catalyst slightly decreased the activation energy required for the process, lowering the temperatures of decomposition. Experiments on a laboratory scale showed that the most common compounds in the gaseous phase are CnHm, H2, CO, and CO2. Nevertheless, the most abundant liquid fraction derivatives are substituted phenolic compounds, pyridine, benzoic acid, naphthalene, d-glucopyranose, and d-allose. Furthermore, the catalyst decreased the amount of higher molecular mass compounds, converting them to toluene (71%), which makes this technology more attractive from the recovery of higher-added-value products point of view.

This study assessed the energy potential, economic feasibility, and environmental performance of landfill gas (LFG) recovery, incineration, and anaerobic digestion (AD) technologies for Phnom Penh municipality in Cambodia, from 2023 to 2042. The economic analysis utilized the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), payback period (PBP), and net present value (NPV) to evaluate the feasibility of each technology. Additionally, environmental performance was assessed following the IPCC 2006 guidelines. The results indicate that incineration produced the highest energy output, ranging from 793.13 to 1625.81 GWh/year, while the LFG and AD technologies yielded equivalent amounts of 115.44–271.81 GWh/year and 162.59–333.29 GWh/year, respectively. The economic analysis revealed an average LCOE of 0.070 USD/kWh for LFG, 0.053 USD/kWh for incineration, and 0.093 USD/kWh for AD. Incineration and LFG recovery were found to be economically feasible, with positive NPVs and a potential for profit within 8.36 years for incineration and 7.13 years for LFG. In contrast, AD technology had a negative NPV and required over 20 years to generate a return on investment. However, AD was the most promising technology regarding environmental performance, saving approximately 133,784 tCO2-eq/year. This study provides valuable technical information for policymakers, development partners, and potential investors to use in order to optimize waste-to-energy investment in Cambodia.