Slagging characteristics caused by alkali and alkaline earth metals during municipal solid waste and sewage sludge co-incineration

Jing Zhao, Bo Li, Xiaolin Wei, Yufeng Zhang and Teng Li

Energy, 2020, vol. 202, issue C

Abstract: Municipal solid waste (MSW) and sewage sludge co-incineration is developing into a new method for sludge treatment. However, waste and sludge containing high levels of alkali and alkaline earth metals (AAEMs) will likely cause slagging, corrosion and deterioration of materials during incineration. The occurrence of AAEMs is studied through extraction experiments. Additionally, the surface microstructure and composition of samples are analyzed by SEM-EDS. XRF and XRD are used to analyze the content and crystalline phases of AAEMs. The experimental results indicate that slagging samples are characterized by high amounts of Ca, Na, K, Cl, and S elements. The samples contain numerous irregular particles due to the condensation and nucleation of AAEMs. The extraction experiments and XRD analyses indicate that the insoluble AAEMs are primarily Ca-diopside and gehlenite and Na and K-aluminosilicates in the furnace. The ammonium acetate-soluble Ca consists mainly of sulfates, and the water-soluble Na and K consist of alkali chlorides in the superheaters. In the reaction tower, AAEMs mainly exist as carbonates and the slagging mechanisms are caused by soda manufacture process. The transformation and deposition of AAEMs enhance the slagging and reduce the heat transfer efficiency. The release of AAEMs can be effectively decreased through using sludge granulation technology during MSW and sludge co-incineration, and the furnace running time is extended.

Keywords: Municipal solid waste; Sludge; Co-incineration; Alkali and alkaline earth metals; Slagging; Sludge granulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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/S036054422030880X
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:energy:v:202:y:2020:i:c:s036054422030880x

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117773

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

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