by Xiong Weisheng

BEIJING, May 12 (China Economic Net) - The world now produces 2.1 billion tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, a figure set to soar to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050. Without urgent action, waste generation will outstrip population growth, driving severe environmental, health, and economic consequences worldwide, the UN’s environment body warns in its 2024 global waste management outlook.

But a new artificial intelligence (AI) system, unveiled at an international high-tech expo in Beijing on Friday, could assist efforts to manage growing waste volumes and automate the entire waste-to-energy process.

Traditionally, generating electricity from waste incineration relies heavily on the experience of human operators to monitor indicators such as the flame characteristics and furnace temperature, and to adjust operations accordingly.

In the AI incineration system developed by Chaoyang Environment Group, the burning process leverages cameras and sensors to “see” what kind of waste is burning and how well it is burning.

With such real-time monitoring and advanced algorithms, the system can predict combustion behavior and emission levels hours in advance, allowing for proactive adjustments, an engineer from Chaoyang Environment told China Economic Net (CEN) in an interview.

This allows the system to automatically fine-tune the burning process and manage flue gas treatment, thereby generating more electricity while reducing harmful emissions, the engineer noted.

At a Beijing plant already using the system, which processes 1,800 tonnes of domestic waste daily, the company reported a 36%-48% increase in steam generation stability, a key factor for electricity production, and an up to 4.2% rise in electricity supplied to the grid. Consumption of materials for emission control during incineration, such as those for deacidification and denitrification, reportedly fell by over 3%.

The engineer said implementing the system in existing plants would primarily involve adding servers and algorithms rather than major hardware overhauls.

As of the end of 2023, China's capacity for domestic waste reached 1.14 million tonnes per day, of which incineration treatment capacity accounted for 75.30%, according to official data.