Study of Hyrothermally RDF Samples for Energy Applications: Thermogravimetric Analysis

Abstract

It has become the need of our society to use municipal solid waste (MSW) under the vision of waste-to-energy (WTE) strategy in order to utilise MSW and to address the energy issues over the world. With respect to the energy, refused derived fuel (RDF) is the energy source of MSW, whose reliability and quality is analysed in this work. The energy content and combustion characteristics of RDFs in oxygen-enriched environment are explored. Three different RDFs (RDF-A, RDF-B and RDF-C) had been adopted from three different waste materials. Plastics, wood and cloth are the major constituents in the recipe of taken RDFs. Proximate and ultimate analysis, thermo gravimetric analysis and calorific value tests had been performed for all RDF samples. The results showed that the RDF-A contains high amount of carbon (52.44%) and hydrogen (4.184%) content and good calorific value (5278 k.cal/kg), which leads to a better fuel quality. TGA analysis revealed that with the increase in the volatile matter fraction of RDFs, the retention time under combustion atmosphere has also been increased accordingly. By analysing of all results, RDF-A was suggested to be the best for energy applications and can be used as fuel for various combustion reactions.