Elsevier

Fuel

Volume 180, 15 September 2016, Pages 424-432
Fuel

Full Length Article
The combined effect of plastics and food waste accelerates the thermal decomposition of refuse-derived fuels and fuel blends

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2016.04.062Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Shredding and screening reduces the chlorine content in MSW fuels by up to 64%.

  • Recovered wood and virgin wood exhibited similar combustion behaviour and properties.

  • Reactivity in fuels increased with the food waste content.

  • A combination of plastics and food waste in a fuel matrix accelerates its decomposition.

Abstract

Mechanical treatments such as shredding or extrusion are applied to municipal solid wastes (MSW) to produce refuse-derived fuels (RDF). In this way, a waste fraction (mainly composed by food waste) is removed and the quality of the fuel is improved. In this research, simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) was used to investigate how different mechanical treatments applied to MSW influence the composition and combustion behaviour of fuel blends produced by combining MSW or RDF with wood in different ratios. Shredding and screening resulted in a more efficient mechanical treatment than extrusion to reduce the chlorine content in a fuel, which would improve its quality. This study revealed that when plastics and food waste are combined in the fuel matrix, the thermal decomposition of the fuels are accelerated. The combination of MSW or RDF and woody materials in a fuel blend has a positive impact on its decomposition.

Keywords

Municipal solid waste (MSW)
Thermochemical conversion
Co-combustion
DSC
TG-FTIR

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