Thermal treatment options for the Romanian municipal solid waste: energy balances

In Romania the impact of waste on the environment has increased at an alarming rate during the past decades also because of an inadequate management of the generated waste. One of the thermal options that can better this situation is based on the concept of municipal solid waste bio-drying pre-treatment in order to open to a group of solutions alternative to direct combustion for energy recovery. This paper presents the results of energy balances based on the average characteristics of the Romanian municipal solid waste. Interesting results could be obtained exploiting existing industrial plants that could partially substitute conventional fuels by refuse derived fuel. One of the problem of this strategy is the potential generation of residues to be landfilled when a high quality fuel must be generated. The lower heating value obtainable by bio-drying and simplified post-treatment can overcome 15 MJ/kg while an additional post-treatment can allow reaching values higher than 20 MJ/kg.