Pretreatments prior to matter and energy recovery of solid waste - Final report, August 2017

The present study constitutes a part of a prospect addressing the increased use of waste materials in the production of matter and energy. Based on a list of problems identified and selected as containing a significant challenge, the study reviews the available processes, as well as those under development to pretreat a number of solid waste types in order to remove the technical obstacles that limit their potential for recovery. The objective of such pretreatments is to extract the compounds considered as polluting or non-recoverable, so that the waste can be transformed into a secondary raw material, which can be used in the industrial process of matter and energy production. Thus, 31 processes have been identified as enabling to address the selected issues. They are described in the form of information sheets. These processes have been classified and arranged into tables according to the nature of the concerned waste and the final destination for its recovery. The study also led to propose 3 descriptive sheets of processes, the application of which can allow the pre-treatment of various waste types, as well as 4 generic sheets giving an overview of the technical solutions answering the same general problem. (authors)