Description :
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The novel concepts Enhanced Waste Management (EWM) and Enhanced
Landfill Mining (ELFM) intend to place landfilling of waste in
a sustainable context. The state of the technology is an important
factor in determining the most suitable moment to valorize – either
as materials (Waste-to-Product, WtP) or as energy (Waste-to-Energy, WtE)
– certain landfill waste streams. The present paper reviews thermochemical
technologies (incineration, gasification, pyrolysis, plasma technologies,
combinations) for energetic valorization of calorific waste streams,
with focus on municipal solid waste (MSW), possibly processed into refuse
derived fuel (RDF). The potential and suitability of these thermochemical
technologies for ELFM applications are discussed. From this review it is
clear that process and waste have to be closely matched, and that some
thermochemical processes succeed in recovering both materials and energy
from waste. Plasma gasification/vitrification is a viable candidate for
combined energy and material valorization, its technical feasibility for
MSW/RDF applications (including excavated waste) has been proven on
installations ranging from pilot to full scale. The continued advances
that are being made in process control and process efficiency are
expected to improve the commercial viability of these advanced thermochemical
conversion technologies in the near future.
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