Publications

Thermochemical conversion technologies can provide a significant contribution to Circular Economy (CE). Although transformation of today‘s mainly linear economy towards CE is one of the major sustainability approaches, we have seen little long-term implementation of waste gasification, waste pyrolysis, or similar processes for feedstock recycling, so far. The increasing focus on CE creates opportunities to promote technology implementation based on previous and ongoing activities and lessons learned.

Bulk waste, typically being collected heterogeneously, can be thermally recycled in waste incinerators. Material recycling that has been implemented for some waste fractions requires extensive pretreatment and is very costly.

Feedstock recycling by thermochemical conversion in contrary deals with bulky waste, mixtures of organic and inorganic content, and degraded end-of-life products in such a way that the overall recycling rate is maximized. These technologies are scalable, can handle difficult feedstocks and produce specified clean intermediates such as synthesis gas or synthetic crude that can be upgraded to chemicals or fuels in existing petro-chemical value chains.

On December 5^th, 2017 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) hosted a Task 36 workshop to share and promote research and development as well as operational findings oriented to the feedstock recycling of waste via thermochemical conversion.