GENERAL DESCRIPTION

Closing the Circle (CtC) is the first project to implement ELFM in practice. CtC deals with the valorization of the landfill of Remo Milieubeheer nv in Houthalen-Helchteren, which contains both household and industrial waste. CtC targets the integrated optimization of materials and energy recovery, while bringing the final residue volume to almost zero and mitigating the CO2 emissions with various techniques. However, for the actual implementation of CtC a number of technological breakthroughs are still required, apart from the development, adaptation and engineering of existing technologies. The present IWT Project proposal focuses exclusively on the challenging and innovative parts of the full CtC/ELFM chain. The Project will deal with core interrelated problems that need to be solved simultaneously. 

PROJECT GOALS

• Developing a comprehensive and robust model to direct waste streams to the right technologies at the right times, with respect to the economic feasibility and the sustainability of the landfill mining activities.

• Targeting the development of a flow sheet model (separation and recuperation) for aged and heterogeneous waste material streams that can be used to design and optimise physical separation plants for complex and heterogeneous input streams such as landfill residues.

• Developing innovative methodologies to convert PlasmarokTM from the energy conversion plant and landfill waste streams that are not suitable for direct use into “ELFM-Building Materials” applications.

• Modelling the two-stage Gas plasmaTM process in detail, enabling to identify the main mechanisms influencing the process performance.

FUNDING TYPE: National funding (IWT O&O – Research and Development)

BUDGET: € 6 000 000

SUBSIDY: € 2 500 000

PUBLICATIONS

• Implementation of temporary storage at the Remo landfill site

• Valorisation of materials within Enhanced Landfill Mining: what is feasible?