Valorização energética de resíduos sólidos urbanos: materiais para caldeiras de centrais de incineração

A strategy for sustainable management of municipal solid waste (MSW) includes reducing the amount of waste produced and reuse of certain materials, as well as use of recycling processes and energy recovery, followed by environmentally safe disposal of any remaining waste. Among the many technologies available for energy recovery, incineration by burning mass is well established, despite the controversy about it. The metal corrosion that occurs on fireside is the main cause of degradation of tube boiler for waste-to-energy (WTE) plants. The difficulty of combating this corrosion is that it varies from plant to plant, and sometimes even from unit to unit of the same plant. The current political reality encourages WTE industry to play an essential role in both sustainable energy supply and environmentally sound management of waste, emphasizing the increase of energy efficiency. Such trends require higher steam pressure and higher temperature of operation of WTE plants, which lead to dramatic increases in the rate of corrosion of the materials which are part of the boiler. Thus, the development of materials with high durability and low cost, and the development of application processes, are key issues in view of both the energy efficient and the economy. This paper presents a literature review on major developments and use of corrosion resistant materials and coating technologies for WTE plants.