Affiliation(s)
1. Institute of Fluid Mechanics (LSTM), Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen D-91058, Germany
2. Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT), Erlangen D-91058, Germany
3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University Federico Santa María, Valparaíso 05101, Chile
ABSTRACT
One of the most significant human-made methane emission sources is the
MSW (municipal solid waste), deposited on sanitary landfills and open dumps. Within this work, an
alternative MSW treatment concept is presented, which could provide a
relatively clean waste/biomass-to-energy transformation. The proposed procedure
comprises of a combustion and a gasification (or
pyrolysis) step, which are consecutively taking place in a two-stage hybrid
porous reactor system. The core of the system is two packed bed reactors, in which solid fuel (waste or biomass) is
mixed with inert ceramic particles of similar size. This paper overviews the
initial experimental investigation of the combustion step of a hybrid mixture,
composed of wood pellets (fuel) and alumina balls (inert ceramic particles) in
a 250 mm-high batch reactor. The temperature profile along the reactor, the
concentration of CO and the flame front propagation velocity were measured as a
function of the ceramic particle size (11 and 20 mm),
the inert-to-fuel mass ratio (0:1, 2:1, 3:1) and the airflow rate (30, 42, 60 l/min).
Experiments indicate that an increase of the mass ratio of inert-to-fuel
material and a decrease of the inert ceramic particles size lead to a decrease
of the maximum temperature of the packed hybrid
bed. Measured CO concentrations showed strong dependence on the inert ceramic
particle size, i.e. the particle size reduction from 20 to 11 mm resulted in a
significant reduction of CO-emission peaks. The maximum flame front propagation
velocity of 0.2 mm/sec was
detected for the airflow of 42 l/min, the particle size of 20 mm and the mass
ratio of 3:1.
KEYWORDS
Combustion, allothermal gasification, MSW, hybrid filtration
combustion, packed bed.
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