Hydrothermal Upgrading of Korean MSW for Solid Fuel Production : Effect of MSW Composition

Abstract EN

In Korea, municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment is conducted by converting wastes into energy resources using the mechanical-biological treatment (MBT).

The small size MSW to be separated from raw MSW by mechanical treatment (MT) is generally treated by biological treatment that consists of high composition of food residue and paper and so forth.

In this research, the hydrothermal treatment was applied to treat the surrogate MT residue composed of paper and/or kimchi.

It was shown that the hydrothermal treatment increased the calorific value of the surrogate MT residue due to increasing fixed carbon content and decreasing oxygen content and enhanced the dehydration and drying performances of kimchi.

Comparing the results of paper and kimchi samples, the calorific value of the treated product from paper was increased more effectively due to its high content of cellulose.

Furthermore, the change of the calorific value before and after the hydrothermal treatment of the mixture of paper and kimchi can be well predicted by this change of paper and kimchi only.

The hydrothermal treatment can be expected to effectively convert high moisture MT residue into a uniform solid fuel.