Experimental Investigation of Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) Gasification: Effect of Temperature and Equivalence Ratio on Process Performance and Release of Minor Contaminants

The growing problem related to municipal solid waste generation has encouraged the development of alternative paths to convert waste to energy. Among the different options, gasification has been proposed as an interesting and efficient technology. In this study the influence of equivalence ratio (ER) and temperature on the performance of the air-gasification process during the gasification of a SRF material has been evaluated. One of the parameters to assess the gasification performance was the tracking of the evolution of some minor contaminants present in the syngas (tar and N, S, and Cl compounds). The results suggest that gasification temperatures around 800-850 degrees C and ER on the order of 0.30-0.35 could be appropriate conditions during SRF gasification aiming for tar and trace contaminants abatement without compromising to a large extent other gasification performance parameters.