Characteristics of co-combustion and kinetic study on hydrothermally treated municipal solid waste with different rank coals: A thermogravimetric analysis

This study presents an investigation on the influence of hydrothermally treated municipal solid waste (MSW) on the co-combustion characteristics with different rank coals, i.e. Indian, Indonesian and Australian coals. MSW blends of 10%, 20%, 30% and 50% (wt.%) with different rank coals were tested in a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) in the temperature range from ambient to 700 degrees C under the heating rate of 10 degrees C/min. Combustion characteristics such as volatile release, ignition and burnout were studied for the blend fuel. Different ignition behavior was observed depending on the blends composition and the coal rank. The result of this work indicates that the blending of MSW improves devolatization properties of coal. But it was found that the co-combustion characteristics of MSW and coal blend cannot be predicted only from the pyrolytic and or devolatization phenomena as the other factors such as the coal quality also plays a vital role in deciding the blends co-combustion characteristics. The TGA combustion profiles showed that the combustion characteristics of blends followed those of parent fuels in both an additive and non-additive manners. These experimental results help to understand and predict the behavior of coal and MSW blends in practical applications. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.