Development and its application of an advanced shaft furnace gasification technology for municipal solid waste in a commercial scale plant

This study reported the development of an advanced shaft furnace, which improved the conventional waste gasification system, and evaluated its performance using operation data and gasification criteria such as cold gas efficiency, carbon conversion ratio, lower heating value, emissions, slag quality, and heavy metal distributions. The coke consumption of the Advance Shaft Furnace was 15.2 kg/t-MSW, which was approximately 1/4 that of the conventional system. The carbon conversion ratio of the Advance Shaft Furnace was 90.7%. Because of higher carbon conversion, the air pollution control residue was reduced from 39.8 kg-t-MSW to 25.3 kg/t-MSW. With the equivalence ratio increasing, carbon monoxide concentration in the syngas decreased and the syngas temperature increased. The other gasification criteria of the advanced shaft furnace were also comparable to the conventional system. The PCDD/DFs emissions from the stack of the advance shaft furnace were 0.0088 ng-TEQ/m³_N, which were comparable to that of the conventional system. The total emissions of the PCDD/DFs from the developed system were 3.9 μg-TEQ/t-MSW, indicating that the developed system can contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact. The Advance Shaft Furnace also has the possibility of recovering materials efficiently. Most of the lead, zinc, and chlorine were distributed in the air pollution control residue at rates of 94.9%, 80.4%, and 97.7%, respectively. Most high-boiling-point heavy metals, such as iron and copper, are distributed in metal. These results indicate that the development of the Advance Shaft Furnace can overcome the disadvantages of the conventional system while keeping the advantages, reducing the environmental impact. Furthermore, the application of biomass coke to the advanced shaft furnace can contribute to the decarbonization and carbon neutrality.