Research "Climate Calculator - Waste Management"
Development of a system for calculation greenhouse gas emissions of different waste management processes
Project description:
Waste management recycling and disposal processes result in the release of varying amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. On the other hand, greenhouse gas emissions can be avoided by recovering secondary materials and by generating and releasing electricity and heat. Under the supervision of Dr. Wünsch, an Excel-based calculation system for determining the greenhouse gas balances of the following recovery and disposal processes is being developed together with the bachelor's and master's students of the Waste Management and Contaminated Sites course:
- landfilling
- mechanical processing
- mechanical-biological stabilization
- mechanical-physical stabilization
- mechanical-biological (aerobic) treatment
- mechanical-biological (anaerobic) treatment
- waste incineration
- incineration in refuse derived fuel power plants
- incineration in lignite and hard coal power plants
- incineration in cement plants
It is possible to assign the waste output of one process as input of another process and thus to create a balance around complete recovery or disposal chains.
Example of the calculation tool
The aim is to develop a calculation interface which, on the one hand, makes it possible to determine greenhouse gas balances with the specification of just a few data, such as the quantities of waste generated. On the other hand, it should also be possible to adapt all parameters, such as waste compositions, greenhouse gas emission and substitution factors, as well as specific data for the listed processes, to the conditions of the user.
The results can be presented in terms of the type of greenhouse gas emissions released and avoided (see following figure), as well as in terms of the recovery and disposal processes used.
Exemplary presentation of emitted and avoided greenhouse gas emissions of waste management treatment processes
Work was also done to automatically generate Sankey diagrams that clearly show the various material, energy and emission flows of the individual processes and the combined recovery and disposal chains.