Thermogravimetric analysis of coal and sludge co-combustion with microwave radiation dehydration

The combustion characteristics of the mixture of two kinds of drying sludge with the coal with different blending ratios were investigated. Their combustion characteristics such as ignition temperature, burnout temperature, combustion performance exponent were obtained. The optimum burning-out dilution and mixing proportion was found to be around 40% under the present test conditions by the analysis of the burn-out temperature and characteristic index. The results showed that combustion characteristics of microwave and hot-air drying sludge and their co-combustion characteristics with coal were similar. Volatile precipitation and combustion processes played a major role in the sludge combustion process during which the reaction mechanism equation of the two kinds of drying sludge were the same. (C) 2014 Energy Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.