Municipal solid waste (MSW) is one of the most persistent challenges facing modern cities — and one of the most overlooked energy resources. GALFAD™ is an integrated waste disposal system designed to change that equation, extracting maximum energy value from unsorted household and commercial waste rather than simply burying it.
Rather than applying a single “one-size-fits-all” treatment technology, GALFAD is built around a simple principle: match the right conversion process to the right waste stream.
What Is GALFAD?
GALFAD is a commercially proven waste-to-energy strategy that combines several established technologies into a single integrated plant. Instead of treating all incoming waste the same way, the system first separates it, then routes each fraction to the process best suited to it.
The core process stages are:
- Front-end waste separation into wet organics, dry organics, recyclates, and rejects
- Gasification of the dry waste fraction
- Anaerobic digestion of the wet organic fraction
- Energy generation from the resulting syngas and biogas
- Optional compost production from digestate sludges
The technology has been developed and demonstrated in Europe, and is deployed in a way that reflects local economic conditions in each market — helping keep the system commercially viable wherever it’s installed.
Because the process significantly reduces methane-generating waste destined for landfill, GALFAD projects are also well positioned to benefit from methane-offset Carbon Credits, making them particularly attractive in Annex 1 countries under the Kyoto Protocol.
Why Gasification?
Gasification is the thermal conversion of organic material into a combustible gas mixture — primarily carbon monoxide, methane, and hydrogen — by heating it in an environment with insufficient oxygen to support full combustion.
It’s not a new idea. During the Second World War, roughly one million gasifiers were used across Europe to power cars, trucks, boats, trains, and generators. That knowledge largely disappeared after the war, but rising pressure to cut landfill volumes and recover energy from waste has driven a resurgence of interest in the technology.
Compared with conventional incineration, gasification achieves similar goals — energy recovery and volume reduction — with a more benign environmental footprint. According to the source data, emissions from the Organics gasification system are comparable to those of an internal combustion engine.
How Efficient Is It?
Conversion efficiency depends heavily on feedstock moisture content, but in practice gasification systems typically achieve energy conversion efficiencies of between 60% and 90%.
The Challenge of Using MSW as Feedstock
Municipal solid waste is a notoriously difficult fuel. It arrives mixed with non-combustible material, varies enormously in composition from batch to batch, and typically has a moisture content around 50% — far above what a gasifier can handle efficiently.
Three parameters are critical to keeping a gasifier running smoothly:
Particle Size Distribution
Waste needs to be sized correctly so it flows evenly through the gasifier without agglomerating or blocking. Smaller particles improve heat transfer (high surface area, low mass) but too small and dust formation and pass-out become a problem.
Moisture Content
Water is actually part of the chemistry — it supplies hydrogen for hydrogen gas formation — but too much moisture wastes energy on drying. The ideal moisture range for gasification is 10–20%, well below the ~50% typical of raw MSW, which is why a drying stage is usually required.
Feedstock Composition
Uniform feedstock produces a stable product gas that’s easier to use downstream (e.g., in an internal combustion engine). MSW is inherently variable, so buffering, blending, or pre-sorting is often used to smooth out fluctuations — though these add operational cost and complexity.
The Organics system is designed to minimise pre-sorting requirements, using a proprietary, patented gas management system to keep calorific value variation to a minimum — even with variable, unsorted feedstock.
Typical Operational Parameters
Based on a feed of 100 dry tonnes per day of varied organic waste, the following performance figures illustrate what the system can achieve:
| Parameter | Value |
|---|---|
| Moisture content after drying | 20% |
| Ash content | 14% of dry fuel (57 kg/hour) |
| Calorific value (after drying) | 12 MJ/kg |
| Fuel gas produced | 2.42 kg gas/kg fuel (after drying) |
| Fuel gas density | 1.137 kg/Nm³ |
| Fuel Lower Calorific Value | 4.39 MJ/Nm³ (air-fed gasifier) |
| Thermal energy production | 10.81 MW |
| Thermal efficiency | 78% |
| Power production | 3.5 MWe |
Integrated Waste Management: Wet and Dry in One Energy Park
Not all organic waste suits gasification. Where moisture content is too high, drying costs become excessive and the process loses its economic appeal. For these wet fractions, GALFAD pairs gasification with anaerobic digestion — a complementary technology covered in more detail in the companion datasheet (ODSR02).
By running both processes side by side, a single site can:
- Convert dry waste to syngas via gasification
- Convert wet waste to biogas via anaerobic digestion
- Generate power from both gas streams
- Produce high-grade compost from digestate sludges
- Send only genuinely inert residues to landfill
This integrated approach turns a waste-stream liability into a genuine energy and materials resource, while also extending the working life of existing landfill capacity.
Key Advantages
- Immediate conversion of biomass waste into usable energy
- Waste reduced to ash, minimising landfill demand
- Extends existing landfill capacity
- Converts a waste-stream liability into a revenue-generating resource
- Combines wet and dry waste treatment into a single integrated energy park
- Absence of excess air during thermal reduction limits formation of harmful pollutant gases
- Can be sited close to the waste source, cutting transport distances and costs
- Flexible plant configuration handles a wide range of waste types
- Patented gas management system keeps energy generation running smoothly despite feedstock variability
Gasification-based power systems — including gas engines, gas turbines, and fuel cells — also tend to run cleaner and more efficiently than conventional boiler-based combustion. Replacing an inefficient boiler with a gasifier or turbine can boost electricity yield from the same biomass feedstock by 50% or more, and the process can even accommodate feedstocks (such as fast-growing energy crops rich in inorganic material) that are poorly suited to direct burning, since inorganics are removed during the gasifier clean-up stage and can potentially be recycled back to agricultural land.
Where This Technology Fits
GALFAD is aimed at municipalities, waste management operators, and industrial sites looking to:
- Reduce reliance on landfill
- Generate renewable electricity from existing waste streams
- Access carbon credit revenue through methane offsetting
- Operate a robust system without needing highly specialised technical staff
The system has been deliberately engineered for a minimum of complexity, making it operable without highly-skilled technicians — an important factor in keeping the overall economics attractive as a renewable energy solution built from what would otherwise be a disposal cost.
Key Takeaways
- GALFAD is an integrated MSW-to-energy system combining front-end separation, gasification, anaerobic digestion, and optional composting.
- Dry waste fractions are gasified; wet organic fractions go to anaerobic digestion — maximising energy recovery from each waste type.
- A 100 tonne/day dry feedstock system can deliver around 3.5 MWe of power at roughly 78% thermal efficiency.
- Moisture content (ideally 10–20%) and feedstock consistency are the biggest technical challenges when gasifying MSW, addressed here via drying and a patented gas management system.
- The approach reduces landfill dependency, cuts emissions relative to conventional incineration, and can qualify for methane-offset carbon credits.
Get in Touch
If you’re evaluating options for reducing landfill dependency while generating renewable electricity from municipal or industrial organic waste, GALFAD’s integrated gasification and anaerobic digestion approach may be a strong fit for your site. Contact us today to discuss feasibility for your local waste stream and economic context.