SEMINAR REPORT

Municipal Solid Waste as a Renewable

Source of Energy

Report by:
Niharika Tadvi

Guided by:
Dr. Manu Agarwal

INTRODUCTION TO MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE

MSW refers to any non-liquid waste that is created by an individual person,
household, small business, or institution, such as a school or hospital. This type of
waste is commonly called trash or garbage and includes everyday items, things that
are broken, food that has spoiled, or simply any item a person no longer needs or
wants. The most common items disposed of as municipal solid waste
MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE
TEXTILE ; 5% OTHER; 2%
METALS; 10% PAPER; 34%
FOOD SCRAPS; 14%
YARD WASTE; 15%
PLASTIC; 13%
WOOD; 7%

Hamad, T., A., Agll, A., A., Hamad, Y., M., Sheffield J., W., Solid waste as renewable source of energy: current and future possibility, Case Studies in Thermal
Engineering, -4, Pages 144-152, November 2014, (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214157X1400032X)
2

WASTE TO ENERGY
Managing waste is a major problem in India. The waste generation from Indian cities
has increased by 50% in the past decade. The problem caused due to this activity can be
overcome by adopting environment friendly waste to energy technologies that would
treat and reduce the waste and also produce fuels from them.

Waste-to-Energy technologies can be classified into three basic techniques

1Bio-chemical
2Electro-chemical
3Thermo-chemical.
Agarwal, M., An Investigation on the Pyrolysis of Municipal Solid Waste, RMIT University, June 2014

THERMO-CHEMICAL METHOD
This process involves thermal decomposition of non-biodegradable organic matter to
produce energy or fuel. The product can be used purely as heat energy or chemically
produce range of end products.
Thermo-chemical methods can be classified as
1 COMBUSTION:
This is simply burning the waste in the air and produce hot gases. It converts the
chemical energy stored in waste to heat, mechanical energy or electrical energy through
process equipment like stoves, furnaces, boilers, turbo-generators, steam turbines, etc.
2 INCINERATION:
It is a common technique to treat the waste. The process required a good air pollutant
control accessories. The process when combine with energy recovery system produces
energy in form of stream or electricity.

Agarwal, M., An Investigation on the Pyrolysis of Municipal Solid Waste, RMIT University, June 2014

3 GASIFICATION
Gasification processes involve the reaction of carbonaceous feedstock with an oxygencontaining reagent, usually oxygen, air, steam or carbon dioxide, generally at
temperatures in excess of 800C. The process is largely exothermic.
The main product is a syngas, which contains carbon monoxide, hydrogen and methane.
The other main product produced by gasification is a solid residue of non-combustible
materials (ash) which contains a relatively low level of carbon.

Zafar, S., Gasification Of Municipal Solid Waste, 06/01/09 (http://www.altenergymag.com/content.php?issue_number=09.06.01&article=zafar)

4 LIQUEFACTION
The thermo-chemical direct liquefaction process converts liquid slurry of biomass and
organic materials to hydrocarbon oils and by-products using high pressure (generally up
to 200 atm) and temperature (generally up to 350 C).
Carbon monoxide, hydrogen, and other catalysts may be added to increase the hydrogen
to carbon ratio, and reduce the oxygen to carbon ratio, thereby improving the
hydrocarbon yields.

BIOREFINING PROCESS , Thermochemical Liquefaction, (http://www.biorefine.org/proc/thermo.pdf)

5 PYROLYSIS

Pyrolysis is a form of incineration that chemically decomposes organic materials by

heat in the absence of oxygen. Pyrolysis typically occur at operating temperatures
above 430 C.

During pyrolysis the objects molecules are subjected to very high temperatures
leading to very high molecular vibrations. At these high molecular vibrations, every
molecule in the object is stretched and shaken to such an extent that molecules starts
breaking down into smaller molecules.
Das, S., & Pandey, S., Pyrolysis And Catalytic Cracking Of Municipal Plastic Waste For Recovery Of Gasoline Range Hydrocarbons, , National Institute of
Technology Rourkela , 2007

ELECTRO-CHEMICAL METHOD

Renewable bio-energy is viewed as one of the ways to alleviate fuel needs of the future
and to overcome the crisis of global warming. Bioelectricity production employing
microbial fuel cell (MFC) through fermentative process has generated considerable
interest in both basic and applied research in recent years MFC is a hybrid bioelectrochemical device which directly transforms energy stored in chemical bonds of
substrate to electrical energy.
Composite food waste collected from institute canteen was used as solid feed for the
operation of SMFC. Solid phase microbial fuel cells (SMFC) In fuel cell configurations,
top portion of cathode was exposed to air. Anodic chamber of fuel cells were fed with
solid state food based canteen waste (450 ml) along with 50 ml (10% v/v) tap water to
maintain moisture content and to enhance analyse (substrate) conductivity. All SMFC
were operated for 29 days under anaerobic microenvironment in the fed-batch mode at
room temperature (29 2C).

Mohan, S., V., Chandrasekhar, K., Solid phase microbial fuel cell (SMFC) for harnessing bioelectricity from composite food waste fermentation, Bio-resource
Technology 102 , 2011

BIO-CHEMICAL METHOD

These processes are based on enzymatic decomposition of biodegradable organic matters

by microbial action and produce METHANE, ALCOHOL, FATTY ACIDS, etc. It is the
conversion of organic matter directly to gas by the action of bacteria in environment.
The gas is called biogas and is mainly a mixture of methane and CO 2 with traces of other
gases like H2S and CO.
This biogas can be directly feed to gas turbine to generate electricity. The overall
conversion efficiency from biomass to electricity is 10-16%.
Classification of methods
1 Anaerobic method
2 Aerobic method

Spuhler, D., Anaerobic Digestion (Organic Waste), SSWM (http://www.sswm.info/content/anaerobic-digestion-organic-waste)

1 ANAEROBIC METHOD
These are airtight reactors in which organic waste is decomposed and transformed into
biogas by a biological process called anaerobic digestion. Biogas is recovered and
transformed into heat or any other form of energy. The remaining sludge contains many
nutrients and can be used in agriculture.
The process lasts over a couple of weeks up to several months. Biogas is recovered and
used either directly for cooking and lighting (at household level) or it is transformed into
heat in a gas heater system or into combined heat and power (CHP) in cogeneration
plants.

Spuhler, D., Anaerobic Digestion (Organic Waste), SSWM (http://www.sswm.info/content/anaerobic-digestion-organic-waste)

10

2 AEROBIC METHOD

This is a process whereby food materials, kitchen wastes including vegetable and fruit
peelings papers, etc. can be converted into compost by the Action of earthworms. An
aerobic condition is created due to the exposure of organic waste to air.
Many Asian countries are adopting the process of vermicomposting for waste disposal.
Although there are thousands of species of earthworms are effective in decomposition of
organic wastes.
Certain biochemical changes in the earthworms intestine result in excretion of undigested
food known as vermicasting that are an excellent manure due to the presence of rich
nutrients-vitamins and enzymes, nitrates, phosphates, and potash.

Biochemical methods of conversion, (

http://www.ewp.rpi.edu/hartford/~ernesto/S2014/SHWPCE/Papers/SW-BiochemicalTreat/SW-Aerobic-Anaerobic-Treatment.pdf)

11

THANK YOU

12