An Environment Friendly Energy Recovery Technology: Municipal Solid Waste Gasification

Energy from waste, is a perspective source to replace fossil fuels in the future, municipal solid waste (MSW) gasification is a new technique for waste treatment. MSW can be combusted directly to generate heat and electricity, and by means of gasification it can also be converted into bio-fuels in the forms of liquid (e.g., bio-oils, methanol and ethanol), and gas (e.g., methane and hydrogen). This paper provides an overview of the principles, recent developments of MSW gasification, as well as comparison of characteristics of MSW incineration and gasification. MSW gasification is considered as the most potential technology to replace incineration, because of the advantages, such as the strict pollution control, noticeable reduction in volume and efficient recovery of resources.