The heating of the solar coronal plasma has remained one of the most important problems in solar physics. An explanation of the electron and ion heating rests on the identification of the energy source and appropriate physical mechanisms via which the energy can be channelled to the plasma particles. In this paper, we discuss two important nonlinear aspects of the electron and ion heating caused by finite amplitude obliquely propagating dispersive Alfvén (DA) waves and magnetic field-aligned circularly polarized electromagnetic ion–cyclotron Alfvén (EMICA) waves that may exist in the solar terrestrial environment. Specifically, DA waves may contribute to the solar coronal electron heating via Joule heating involving electron–wave interactions, and resonant ion EMICA wave interactions may contribute to differential ion heating in the solar corona.