Organic waste feedstocks to energy

Abstract

Waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies convert waste matter into various forms of fuel that can be used to supply energy. Waste feedstocks can include municipal solid waste (MSW); forest and wood industry wastes including bark, chips, sawdust, hardboard dust, mud from paper industry and raw cork; agricultural waste, such as crop silage and livestock manure; industrial waste from coal mining, lumber mills, or other facilities; and even the gases that are naturally produced within landfills. There are four major methods for conversion of organic wastes to synthetic fuels: (1) hydrogenation, (2) pyrolysis, (3) gasification, and (4) bioconversion. Biomass thermo-chemical conversion technologies such as pyrolysis and gasification are certainly not the most important options at present; combustion is responsible for over 97% of the world's bio-energy production. Some processes such as pyrolysis, gasification, anaerobic digestion and alcohol production have widely been applied to biomass in order to obtain its energy content.