Waste-to-energy technologies in continuous process industries

A range of new waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies in continuous process industries have been analyzed in terms of conversion, energy saving, heat recovery, electricity generation, transportation fuel, storing energy and fuel, environmental emissions, and recycling management. This new group of WtE technologies is an emerging technology group for energy-intensive industries apart from the wide concept of “clean energy technologies”. The current state of WtE technologies has been examined for five representative sectors in continuous industrial processes: iron and steel, cement, primary aluminum production, metal casting, and glass industry. The purpose of the study was to seek synergetic interactions between continuous process industries, with special emphasis on the case of the iron and steel industry. For the purpose of a comparative analysis, waste heat recovery (WHR) technology has been included. A case study in the steel sector is illustrated as a real-world example for solid recovery using WHR in sintering process.