Simulating hydrothermal treatment of sludge within a pulp and paper mill

Mikko Mäkelä and Kunio Yoshikawa

Applied Energy, 2016, vol. 173, issue C, 177-183

Abstract: Hydrothermal treatment of sludge within the pulp and paper industry can have a wide range of possible reactor solid loads for different sludge types. The objectives of this work were to determine the effect of reactor temperature and solid load on the properties of sludge hydrochar and to simulate hydrothermal treatment of sludge within a pulp and paper mill. Laboratory experiments were first performed within reactor temperature and solid load ranges of 180–260°C and 10–50%, respectively, and the effects of sludge treatment were determined by comparing parallel mill-scale simulations. Based on the results, both reactor temperature and solid load had a statistically significant effect on the solid, ash, carbon and energy yields of sludge hydrochar. Increasing solid load minimized carbon dissolution to the liquid phase and increased the solid and energy yield of the attained hydrochar. According to mill-scale simulations in a 9m3 batch reactor, treating primary sludge alone produced an energy surplus of 22–36GJ through char incineration, decreasing to 12–22GJ and 3.4–9.1GJ for mixed and secondary sludge, respectively. Mixing primary and secondary sludge reduced the overall energy surplus by 2–8% compared with treating the sludge streams separately in two reactors.

Keywords: Biosolids; Energetics; Hydrothermal carbonization; Process integration; Wastewater treatment; Wet torrefaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261916304652
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:173:y:2016:i:c:p:177-183

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.04.017

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().