Analyses of materials flows in waste incineration plants.

At the present time 53 waste incineration plants are operating in Germany, with an annual capacity of ca. 12 million tons. Another 13 are in the building or approval stage. These capacities are not enough to satisfy the demands of the Technical Regulation on Domestic Solid Waste (Technische Anleitung Siedlungsabfall) as from the year 2005. Additional thermal waste treatment plants must be built. In order to adhere to the required limit values of the 17th Federal regulation on immission protection (BimSchV) and the even lower limits demanded during the approval stage, the flue-gas purification equipment in thermal waste treatment plants in Germany is often extremely complex and consequently greatly influences the overall investment costs for waste incineration plants. As it is possible to combine the individual aggregates in the flue gas purification process in many varied ways, the waste incineration plants in operation all have very different flue gas purification plants. Against this background the issue to be solved when building new waste incineration plants or replacing old ones is what is the most expedient design for an ecologically and economically expedient flue gas purification plant. In addition to the emissions at the chimney other aspects to be considered are the quantities of residual materials and the amount of additive chemicals used. In co-operation with the ITC-TAB, ITAS is therefore carrying out comparative materials flows balances on selected process combinations in flue gas purification. The analyses are supplemented by economic studies.

On the basis of a model plant with two incineration lines of an annual capacity of 200 000 tons of waste and different flue-gas purification systems, materials balances are made on the basis of a reference crude gas and the results compared in terms of residual waste and inputs of chemicals.