An experimental investigation of solid waste gasification using a large pilot scale waste to energy plant

Management and treatment of solid waste can mitigate adverse impacts on environment and human health, and also can support economic development and quality of life. A number of thermo-chemical waste treatment methods (i.e. waste-to-energy conversion pathways such as, Pyrolysis, Gasification and Incineration) can transfer solid waste into energy, while gasification technology provides an efficient and environmental friendly solution to produce energy in the form of syngas. This paper presents an experimental investigation of syngas production using a pilot scale fluidised bed gasification process for energy recovery from solid waste. As feedstock preparation plays an important role to increase performance of gasification, steps offeed stock preparation (sorting, shredding and dying) are explained in detailed. Syngas production and clean-up and burning process is explained. The composition of syngas produced at different stages of the experiment is presented. Heat balance of heat engines, emission control and mass and energy balances of gasification plant used for energy recovery in this study is presented and discussed. This study found that about 65% of the original energy of solid waste is converted to syngas and 23% is converted to char with remaining 12% as residue loss. The primary energy conversion is done by burning syngas in a 0.5 MWe gas engine through an otto cycle power generation.