Experimental studies on combustion characteristics of mixed municipal solid waste

In our country, municipal solid wastes (MSW) are always burnt in their original forms and only a few pretreatments are taken. Therefore it is vital to study the combustion characteristics of mixed waste. In this paper, thermogravimetric analysis and a lab scale fluidized bed facility were used as experimental means. The data in two different experimental systems were introduced and compared. It took MSW 3-3.5 min to burn out in FB, but in thermogravimetric analyzer, the time is 20-25 min. It can be concluded that, in general, the behavior of a mixture of waste in TGA can be expressed by simple combination of individual components of the waste mixtures. Only minor deviations from the rule were observed. Yet, in Fluidized Bed, it was found that, for some mixtures, there was interference among the components during fluidized bed combustion.