Numerical and experimental analysis of municipal solid wastes gasification process

Abstract

As the quantity of municipal solid waste (MSW) increases with economic growth, problems arise in regard to sustainable management solutions. Thermal treatment presents a valid option for reducing the amounts of post-recycling waste to be landfilled. Incineration technology, besides reducing the total volume of waste and making use of the chemical energy in MSW for power generation, has negative environmental impact from high emission of pollutants. Recent policy to tackle climate change and resources conservation stimulated the development of renewable energy and landfill diversion technology, thereby giving gasification technology development renewed importance. In this work a two-dimensional CFD model for MSW gasification was developed and an Eulerian-Eulerian approach was used to describe the transport of mass, momentum and energy for the solid and gas phases. This model is validated using experimental data from the literature. The numerical results obtained are in good agreement with the reported experimental results.