With the worldwide revolution in the industrial sector, waste has been one of the major environmental issues. From plastic to municipal solid wastes, chemical to clinical wastes, all can pollute the environment and lead to various health related problems.
Instead of throwing away everything into the landfills, various environmental waste management companies, state governments and local authorities are converting necessary waste into different forms of energy. Since the total volume of waste is continue to rise, it becomes imperative to adopt waste from energy methods to reduce the environmental impact as much as possible.
Waste to energy is the process under which thermal energy is being produced from the organic waste. Most wastes to energy processes generate heat and electricity energy. So, here are different types of wastes that can be converted into resources.
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Both solid and liquid waste can be hazardous for the environment as well as living beings. Liquid waste includes chemicals, wash water, while the solid waste includes plastics, newspapers, car types, broken furniture, food, etc. It is important to differentiate between two wastes before getting into the energy transformation process.
The wastes produced on a daily basis can be converted into something resourceful, such as fuel, heat and electricity. The solid wastes can be turned into gas to generate energy. Electricity can be generated by burning solid waste. The following methods are used to convert waste into energy.
Incineration is one of the most common technologies that can be used in the waste to energy conversion process. The organics are collected from the waste through the burning process at a high temperature. This is called thermal treatment process. The heat is generated from this treatment then used to create energy.
Gasification is a process which is used to generate energy from waste. Under this, carbonaceous substances are transformed into carbon dioxide, hydrogen and carbon monoxide at a high temperature in the availability of oxygen. After that, synthesis gas is produced which is a good source of alternate energy. Synthesis gas is used to produce heat as well as energy.
This particular technology utilises thermal decomposition in the presence of water. Under this process, waste generates organic compounds when heated at a high temperature to create thermal energy. It can generate fossil fuels and this process is called hydrous pyrolysis.
Under this process, the industrial techniques have been used to transform waste into energy. This is similar to Hydrous Pyrolysis. However, this process uses organic as well as agricultural wastes from industries to produce energy.
This is one of the one advanced techniques or methods used to convert waste into energy. In this process, a plasma torch is utilised to ionise gas which is produced from compressing the waste.
Methods used to convert waste into energy can be complex but can protect the environment to a great extend. These are different types of waste and different strategies have been used to transform solid and liquid waste into useful energy.
