Ontwikkeling van een gedetailleerd thermochemisch procesmodel voor het herwinnen van kritische grondstoffen uit afvalstromen in de Circulaire Economie.

The aim of the PhD research is to establish a detailed design for an advanced thermal treatment of waste/biomass, combining working principles of incineration, gasification and pyrolysis in a single, multi-modular and operationally flexible process. Engineering correlations and thermochemical data will be collected, and tools developed to model and compare some of the most commonly used process configurations for thermal processing of waste/biomass, such as (cross-flow) grate systems, packed/fluidized beds and looping high-T reactors. One or more configurations will be elaborated in detail with regard to equipment sizing, heat & mass balances (in steady-state operation mode), heat & mass transport (in transient operation mode) and partitioning of specified chemical elements over different phases (gas/solid). This PhD research is the cornerstone of the design of a future experimental thermal pilot plant to be developed in the lab.