Anaerobic co-digestion plant with biodegradable organic feedstock separated from municipal solid waste (MSW) have become a mature technology in past decade. The biogas produced can be upgraded to bio-methane or used in heat and power applications. However, not all the municipal waste fractions such as ligno-cellulose and green waste, are suitable for biodegradation. In this work, the non-biodegradable organic waste named as green waste is investigatedas a potential substrate for a bio refinery conceptbased on combination of pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion.
The main aim of the study was to evaluate whether or not the anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis process coupling could be beneficial from an energy and exergy point of view. The simulation results shows that the integration of pyrolysis process gives approximately 59% overall efficiency as compared to the 52% for a naerobic digestion stand-alone process. The results also revealed that the pyrolysis of green waste is more beneficial than green waste incineration for heat and power production.