Refuse Derived Fuel Gasification Possibilities in Small Scale Units

Fossil fuels use reduction and waste recycling are two great challenges facing our society nowadays. A concept intended to solve both problems is Waste-to-Energy (WtE) approach (Brunner and Rechberger in Waste Manag 37: 3–12, 2015). The routes to the energy recovery can be grouped as thermo-chemical and biochemical approaches and the selection of the WtE technologies also depends on the waste composition. Waste sources can be industrial and agricultural production and urban regions but growing attention is paid to municipal solid waste in OECD countries (Hoornweg and Bhada-Tata in What a waste: a global review of solid waste management. World Bank, Washington, DC 2012) consisting dominantly of organic materials (27%), paper (32%), plastic 11%, glass, metal and other components. Most widespread technologies for MSW thermal conversion are: (1) MSW incineration; (2) co-combustion with other fuels; (3) gasification; (4) pyrolysis (Astrup et al. in Waste Manage 37: 104–115 2015).