Pelletisation of Solid Waste Residues to Produce Fuels for Advanced Thermal Treatment Processes

摘要

Current waste management practice and policy in the UK has seen an increase in landfill costs with decreases in landfill capacity. Operations such as Material Recovery Facilities and Mechanical Biological Treatment are being used as emerging alternatives to landfill. Such processes are never 100% efficient and still produce a residue which is not viable for further recycling. This paper is concerned with the pelletisation of residue from recycling operations and facilities to produce fuel for use in Advanced Thermal Treatment applications. A series of experiments were performed to outline the parameters required to extrude a fuel pellet made from residue. These included extrusion pressure, temperature, and mass flow rate based on the initial composition of the feed. Industrial and laboratory-scale experiments were performed to determine the optimum extrusion conditions, based on pellet integrity and energy used in manufacture. Key findings showed that processing temperature and polyethylene admix ratios can affect the energy required to manufacture fuel pelts, and that milling technology is more efficient than extrusion.