Under the European waste hierarchy of reduce, reuse, recycle, recovery and landfilling, the focus on recycling of packaging waste has been placed on mechanical recycling. As this reaches its limits in addressing mixed plastic waste streams, global interest in chemical recycling is growing. To date, global project deployments in this area have predominantly focused on the pyrolysis of plastic waste to produce liquids (i.e. pyrolysis oil as naphtha substitute). Increasingly, international awareness is growing that chemical recycling – especially in the form of waste gasification – has applicability beyond plastic waste streams.

Waste gasification offers an alternative to incineration and landfilling for the large quantities of mixed, unsorted, contaminated and challenging waste fractions which are not suitable for mechanical recycling or pyrolysis. In enabling the use of such carbon-containing waste fractions as alternative feedstock to conventional resources (i.e. crude oil, natural gas, coal) for chemical production, it has the potential to make a substantial contribution to the transition towards a low carbon, circular and hydrogen economy. Moreover, the integration of renewable electricity in gasification also enables a lowering of the CO₂ footprint and facilitates the storage of energy in products. Despite this potential, numerous socio-technological-economical-ecological-political questions and issues associated with the development and project deployment of waste gasification remain to be answered/resolved.

In view of its potential contribution to the decarbonization and sustainability transformation of carbon intensive industries, chemical recycling in the form of waste gasification thus forms the focus of the “2022 International Freiberg Conference on Waste Gasification – Syngas & Hydrogen from Challenging Secondary Feedstock” which will be taking place from 19-21 September 2022 in Freiberg, Germany.

The event focuses on the opportunities, challenges and developments in thermo-chemical conversion of a wide range of challenging carbon-containing waste streams into synthesis gas and/or hydrogen for chemical utilization. It provides an interactive discussion forum for specialists and practitioners as well as stakeholders to exchange information and insights about new developments from research and technology developers as well as current/planned projects and operational experiences by plant operators along the Waste-to-Products value chain.

Refer to DESCRIPTION for topics for oral and poster presentations as well as breakout sessions.

Interactive Conference Format to relaunch networking among conference participants!

• Training for Professionals – “Compact Course Chemical Recycling: Waste Gasification”
• Oral Conference Presentations
• Poster Presentations & Networking Sessions
• Breakout Sessions (interactive small group discussions focused on specific topics)

This conference is organized by the Institute of Energy Process Engineering and Chemical Engineering (IEC) at the TU Bergakademie Freiberg (Freiberg, Germany), and supported by the Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS Branch Lab “Circular Carbon Technologies” and the German Network for a Circular Carbon Economy (NK2 Network).