The global improvements in living standards have also brought a steady increase to urban/municipal solid waste accumulation. Today it is estimated that on global scale the urban solid waste accumulation has reached unseen-before levels of almost 2  billion metric tons annually, accounting in turn for over 5% of global gas emissions. This amount is projected to almost double by 2050 to over 3.5 billion metric tons, also doubling the gas emissions to over 10%.

Urban waste management is today a global problem which remains unsolved by existing waste management technologies including waste-to-energy incineration plants as primary benefactors of colossal investments to the tune of tens of billions $USD/year. The waste-to-energy incinerators, advertised as an ecological solution have a limited life span, notoriously high maintenance costs and pose intense ecological problems due to the very nature of toxic gases produced (including carcinogens). Alternatively, the use of “landfills” to accommodate this waste is also expensive (landfill fees can that go higher than 100 $USD per ton waste) and closely associated with unrestrained gas emissions that can be as high as 6 m3 of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) per ton waste deposited.

Pyrolysis of urban waste (thermo-chemical decomposition of biomass at 550- 650 °C in the absence of oxygen) is one of the very few ecological solutions in dealing with urban waste. The pyrolysis process disintegrates the organic waste into hydrocarbon-based biofuels, burning gases such as methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2) and tar, a useful material for construction industry. Pyrolysis is however a very high energy process. It is estimated that energy transfer to the biomass particles needs to be in the order of 750-1000 Watts/cm2 to enable breaking of chemical bonds. This extremely high energy consumption in addition to the complicated reactor and process design increases substantially the cost of such systems preventing them from becoming a mainstream waste treatment process.

Mikroen Technology provides an elegant and convenient way for accomplishing cost-effective biomass/waste pyrolysis in super heated coil reactors, capable of reaching and maintaining pyrolysis temperatures over a range of 650 °C to 1200 °C at low energy consumption. Advantages of this technology include:

1. Pyrolysis temperatures can be achieved and transferred within seconds inside the entire biomass.
2. A wide range of uniform pyrolysis temperatures throughout the entire reactor body will ensure uniform energy distribution, avoiding any “dead zones” inside the reactor. This feature allows for the pyrolysis process to proceed at an increased flow rate of biomass/waste, therefore increasing the process output.
3. The technological application can be simpler compared to conventional technology as any gas-based or electrical heat exchangers will be avoided, resulting in considerable cost reduction for these systems.

Microwave-Enabled pyrolytic processes can be successfully extended to chemical recycling of plastic waste. The percentage of mechanically recycled plastics included into the virgin raw materials needed for plastics manufacturing is typically small, not exceeding 4-5%, to not negatively affect the quality of plastic products. Due to sensitive environmental concerns associated with landfilling large amounts of plastic waste, the only remaining option that allows plastics manufacturers to increase recycled plastics into production is chemical recycling of plastic waste: a pyrolytic depolymerization process that breaks down mechanically recycled plastics into their original raw materials that can then be mixed with virgin raw materials seamlessly to generate superior quality plastics. Chemical recycling also addresses a very sharp health problem arising from repetitive recycling of plastics: the existence of microplastics, tiny plastic microfibers that end up in water, food and more importantly breathable air. Ingestion of microplastics by humans could lead to serious health problems.

Mikroen microwave enabled, continuous flow pyrolysis technology offers an elegant way of breaking down plastic polymer waste to basic monomers. Being able to achieve and maintain the necessary pyrolysis temperatures at a fraction of energy needed by conventional pyrolysis technology, in addition to having a simple engineering design, considerably high process throughput can be achieved in microwave enabled flow reactors.