Combustion characteristics of refuse-derived fuel by means of circulating fluidized bed test furnace

Municipal waste is incinerated at the rate of 35 million tons a year in Japan. However, the generation of electricity from the combustion heat is quite limited because of the irregular supply of the waste, fuel caused by (1) the difficulty in handling, (2) difficulty in steady collection of an adequate quantity and (3) fluctuation in the properties and quantity. Recently, a technique was developed to mix municipal waste with calcium oxide and to pelletize the material into dry, hard RDF, which can be stored biologically stably for a long period of time. This paper reports that the RDF can be burned completely without any difficulty, in a circulating fluidized bed combustor, and the emission of air pollutants such as NO, N2O, SO2, HCl and dioxines is quite low.