ABSTRACT
Waste management is a big issue nowadays as wastes are being generated in an ever-increasing rate by growing affluent societies. The large amount of nonhomogeneous municipal solid waste has become a tremendous problem for all Indian metropolitan cities. Municipal solid waste (MSW) consists mainly of household and commercial wastes, which are disposed of by, or on behalf of, a local authority. It is composed mainly of paper/ cardboard, plastics, glass, metals, textiles, and food/garden waste. Disposal of the massive waste materials poses problems in terms of environmental impact, economic costs and technology implementation. Environment 198friendly processes must be thoroughly studied for the utilization of the waste materials in view of the increasing demand of energy in this modern era. The recovery of energy from the waste materials may be done through thermochemical processes like combustion, gasification, and pyrolysis. Among all these routes, pyrolysis has been receiving increasing attention in recent years as an acceptable route for waste to energy conversion. The main reason for this is that, in the pyrolysis process production of either char, oil, or gases, the pyrolysis products may be maximized by the adjustment of process condition. Pyrolysis is a thermochemical process in which hydrocarbon rich solid or liquid feed materials are thermally degraded to char, volatile liquid, and noncondensable gaseous component in absence of oxidizing media either air or oxygen. The mechanism of primary pyrolysis of solid and liquid feedstocks is as follows:
