Performance assessment of gasification reactors for sustainable management of municipal solid waste

The issue of waste management has received considerable critical attention due to the increase of waste generation worldwide. One of the solutions for waste disposal that has been widely implemented is through the use of the landfill due to its economic benefits. Landfill, however, results in many adverse impacts on the environment and human health. Recycling can extract some useful materials from waste, however not every waste can be recycled and a significant volume of waste, particularly the municipal solid waste (MSW) goes to landfill even though it has extractable energy potentials. Extraction of energy from MSW has been a key focus of research due to the scope of energy recovery, environmental and economic benefits. The principal concept of waste to energy is to convert waste into energy through thermal and/or biological processes. In addition, thermochemical processes such as gasification have been found as a promising technology offering several benefits. This paper presents a critical assessment of waste to energy gasification technology for MSW on processing, energy recovery, environmental performance and economic perspectives. These aspects have been analyzed for the landfill as well. The review also explored and identified suitable simulation tools for optimizing gasification. Subsequently, an assessment and comparison of different gasification reactors were carried out which indicate that the plasma gasification can be a feasible technology for MSW management due to higher energy efficiency (816 kWh/tonne) with minimum emission and lowest residue. Although plasma gasification is an energy intensive application which has relatively higher investment cost, it can be built as a large system (up to several 1000 MW system), which can make it economically competitive too. Other technologies such as; fluidized bed gasifier, fixed bed gasifier also have good energy efficiency (547-571 kWh/tonne) however, they contribute to higher CO₂ emission. Considering overall waste management, it was found that gasification technology is beneficial to economy, environment and energy extraction compared to the landfill option. A number of tools and their relevant properties have been identified to develop appropriate gasifier model. It is expected that this study will advance further research and innovation that will be helpful to manage waste efficiently as well as to improve the environment.