Advanced Thermal Treatment
Advanced Thermal Treatment (ATT) technologies are primarily those that employ Pyrolysis and/or Gasification to process municipal solid waste (MSW) or biomass[1]. It excludes Incineration of wastes which is already a mature and well-established technology.
Most commonly, energy is recovered through this process as the gas produced from gasification or pyrolysis are combusted in a boiler, and the steam produced is used to generate electricity. Alternatively, if the syngas undergoes processing, then chemical feedstocks or fuels can be produced from ATT plants[1].
ATT plants have varying configurations but will typically consist of the following key elements:
- Waste reception, handling and pre-treatment;
- Thermal treatment reactor;
- Gas and residue treatment plant (optional);
- Energy recovery plant (optional); and
- Emissions clean-up[1].
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 DEFRA, 2013, Advanced Thermal Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste. London.