The “three modernizations” of solid waste vitrification treatment have outstanding advantages and huge market development space

Vitrification of solid waste is an effective method for harmless, reduction, and resource utilization (three transformations) of difficult-to-treat solid waste. The raw materials used mainly include general solid waste and hazardous waste.

With the improvement of living standards and the expansion of industrial scale, the amount of solid waste produced in my country continues to increase every year, and the current treatment method is mainly incineration. The residue from garbage incineration is ash, including fly ash, bottom slag, which contains dioxins, heavy metals and other substances, and is still classified as hazardous waste. Especially in the medical and industrial fields, a large amount of hazardous solid waste is produced, and ash is even more harmful. Under normal circumstances, ash and residue will be disposed of by landfill, which takes up land resources and causes great harm to the ecological environment.

According to the “2022-2027 China Solid Waste Vitrification Industry Market In-depth Research and Development Prospects Forecast Report” released by the Industrial Research Center It shows that vitrification of solid waste uses high-temperature melting technology or plasma technology to process solid waste and convert it into vitrified products for reuse. It has significant advantages in the treatment of hazardous solid waste. The principle of high-temperature melting and plasma solid waste vitrification treatment is to heat the solid waste above the melting point to melt it, and then quickly lower the temperature to form a vitrified product.

The process flow of high-temperature molten solid waste vitrification treatment technology is: raw material pretreatment (such as dechlorination, dehydration, crushing), compatibility (adding other materials, fuel), molding, high-temperature melting, water quenching, and then obtaining vitrified products. The plasma solid waste vitrification treatment process mainly uses thermal plasma technology, which can combine organic gasification and inorganic melting. It is currently the most advanced solid waste vitrification technology.

The product of solid waste vitrification treatment locks in dangerous substances such as dioxins and heavy metals. It has high environmental stability, low possibility of leaching toxicity, and has no dangerous characteristics. Therefore, it can be reused and is mainly used in construction. Materials, such as polyurethane foam fillers, asphalt/cement/concrete admixtures, construction sand, and the production of unfired bricks, foam glass, etc.

Industry analysts said that in the 1980s and 1990s, Japan, the European Union, and the United States began to apply solid waste vitrification technology. According to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, in 2021, my country’s urban domestic waste removal volume will reach 248.69 million tons; according to data released by the National Development and Reform Commission, in 2021, my country’s urban domestic waste incineration treatment rate will exceed 50%. It can be seen from this that the amount of waste incineration in my country continues to increase, and the amount of ash and residue production increases accordingly. Against the background of increasingly stringent environmental protection policies, my country’s solid waste vitrification treatment market has great room for development.

In December 2020, the green industrial service project “Rotary Kiln Incineration and Plasma Collaborative Ash Treatment System” of Dongguan Haixinsha Resource Comprehensive Utilization Center, constructed by CITIC Environmental Technology, was officially ignited. This is my country’s first rotary kiln + plasma collaborative disposal of hazardous waste projects. my country’s solid waste vitrification treatment technology has entered the commercial development stage, and the scale of the industry is expected to continue to expand in the future.