Municipal Solid Waste Incineration with Energy Recovery: A Critical Review of Process Performance, Emissions, Residues, and System Integration
- 1Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics, AGH University of Krakow, al. Mickiewicza 30, 30-059 Krakow, Poland
- 2Faculty of Engineering Sciences, State University of Applied Sciences in Nowy Sącz, Zamenhofa 1A, 33-300 Nowy Sacz, Poland
Abstract
The aim of this review is to provide a critical synthesis of peer-reviewed literature focusing exclusively on MSWI, rather than the broader field of Waste-to-Energy, based on a search in Scopus and a structured narrative synthesis. The methodology comprised eight Scopus queries defined for the main analytical axes of MSWI, deduplication, screening according to the established eligibility criteria, a layered corpus design, and domain-specific weighting of evidence within the framework of a structured narrative synthesis. This yielded 5435 unique records after deduplication, from which the main time window of 2010–2026 and a layer of publications from 2019 to 2026 were extracted. The review shows that the net balance of MSWI does not result from a single parameter or a single evaluation metric, but from the interplay between feedstock variability, combustion management, air pollution control (APC) configuration, residue management, and the utilisation of recovered heat and energy. Modern APC systems have reduced stack emissions, but do not eliminate the significance of transient states or the transfer of pollutants to fly ash and APC residues. Bottom ash exhibits conditional potential for material and metal recovery, whilst fly ash and APC residues remain the main constraint on recovery pathways. Environmental, climatic, health and economic assessments remain highly sensitive to system boundaries, functional units, counterfactual scenarios, the local energy mix, the quality of exposure reconstruction and integration with district heating. The added value of the review lies in maintaining MSWI as the sole analytical core and integrating the process, emissions, residues and system assessments within a single interpretative framework focused on comparability, trade-offs and the MSWI system balance.
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BibTeX
@article{banas2026municipal,
title = {{Municipal Solid Waste Incineration with Energy Recovery: A Critical Review of Process Performance, Emissions, Residues, and System Integration}},
author = {Marian Banaś and Tadeusz Pająk and Józef Ciuła},
journal = {Energies},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.3390/en19112698},
url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/en19112698},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Municipal Solid Waste Incineration with Energy Recovery: A Critical Review of Process Performance, Emissions, Residues, and System Integration
AU - Marian Banaś
AU - Tadeusz Pająk
AU - Józef Ciuła
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/04
JO - Energies
DO - 10.3390/en19112698
UR - https://doi.org/10.3390/en19112698
AB - The aim of this review is to provide a critical synthesis of peer-reviewed literature focusing exclusively on MSWI, rather than the broader field of Waste-to-Energy, based on a search in Scopus and a structured narrative synthesis. The methodology comprised eight Scopus queries defined for the main analytical axes of MSWI, deduplication, screening according to the established eligibility criteria, a layered corpus design, and domain-specific weighting of evidence within the framework of a structured narrative synthesis. This yielded 5435 unique records after deduplication, from which the main time window of 2010–2026 and a layer of publications from 2019 to 2026 were extracted. The review shows that the net balance of MSWI does not result from a single parameter or a single evaluation metric, but from the interplay between feedstock variability, combustion management, air pollution control (APC) configuration, residue management, and the utilisation of recovered heat and energy. Modern APC systems have reduced stack emissions, but do not eliminate the significance of transient states or the transfer of pollutants to fly ash and APC residues. Bottom ash exhibits conditional potential for material and metal recovery, whilst fly ash and APC residues remain the main constraint on recovery pathways. Environmental, climatic, health and economic assessments remain highly sensitive to system boundaries, functional units, counterfactual scenarios, the local energy mix, the quality of exposure reconstruction and integration with district heating. The added value of the review lies in maintaining MSWI as the sole analytical core and integrating the process, emissions, residues and system assessments within a single interpretative framework focused on comparability, trade-offs and the MSWI system balance.
SN - 1996-1073
ER -