Glossary
Waste-to-energy and biomass
Waste-to-energy
Also known as WtE, EfW, energy-from-waste, MSW incineration.
Waste-to-energy (WtE) — equivalently energy-from-waste (EfW) — burns municipal solid waste (MSW), RDF, SRF and TDF, commercial waste and some industrial waste streams to generate steam and electricity. WtE is the fastest-growing application for industrial sonic horns worldwide, driven by:
- EU policy — landfill diversion targets, EU ETS extension to WtE from 2028
- UK — recent tightening of criteria for new WtE plants raises operating-efficiency expectations
- EPC pipeline — major projects from Hitachi Zosen Inova / Kanadevia Inova, Babcock & Wilcox Vølund, Paprec Énergies, Keppel Seghers, ANDRITZ, Valmet
- Operator economics — tipping fees underwrite high-availability targets
Why WtE is uniquely fouling-prone
Three converging factors make WtE boilers harder to clean than conventional fossil-fuel plants:
- High chlorine content in waste fuels → chloride corrosion and sticky deposits
- High alkali content (Na, K from food, paper, biomass fractions) → low-melt sticky ash
- Variable fuel composition → unpredictable fouling intensity
Conventional steam sootblowing accelerates tube wastage on the chloride-rich, low-melt deposits typical of WtE; acoustic cleaning is the safer alternative.
Where sonic horns sit in WtE plants
- Boiler convective pass — superheater, evaporator, economiser tube banks
- SCR catalyst layers — high-dust SCR on WtE
- Flue-gas ducting between boiler and treatment train
- Bag-filter compartments and hoppers
- Bottom-ash and fly-ash hoppers
Related terms
Related terms
- Municipal solid wasteMSW is mixed household and commercial waste — the primary fuel for mass-burn WtE plants. Variable composition produces variable fouling and ash chemistry.
- RDF, SRF and TDFRDF (refuse-derived fuel), SRF (solid recovered fuel, higher spec) and TDF (tyre-derived fuel) are the three dominant waste-derived alternative fuels for cement kilns and WtE boilers.
- Grate-fired boiler and mass-burn incineratorGrate-fired (mass-burn) WtE boilers burn MSW on a moving grate without fuel pre-processing. The dominant design for municipal waste incineration.
- Chloride-induced corrosionChloride-induced corrosion is the accelerated tube-wall thinning caused by chlorine-rich deposits on WtE and biomass boilers. The dominant tube-failure mechanism in WtE.
- Sonic hornA sonic horn is a pneumatically-driven low-frequency sound emitter (typically 60–400 Hz at 140–180 dB SPL) used to dislodge particulate fouling from boilers, ESPs, baghouses and process vessels.