Heavy Metals Partitioning during Thermal Conversion of Sewage Sludge in a Fluidized Bed under Conditions Relevant for Pyrolysis and Gasification

Abstract

There is a growing concern on the final disposal of urban organic wastes, such as municipal solid waste (MSW) and sewage sludge (SS), since they constitute an available energy and material source currently not efficiently valorized. These wastes become an attractive feedstock provided proper treatment/conversion techniques are applied, dealing with their high load of impurities. The objective of this work was to investigate the partitioning of heavy metals and other relevant species during thermal treatment of sewage sludge in order to properly valorize/dispose this feedstock. Experiments were performed in a fixed-bed and a fluidized-bed reactors under conditions relevant for pyrolysis and gasification.