Development and operation of a 30 ton/ day gasification and melting plant for municipal solid wastes

As one of the efforts to increase recycling rate of end of life vehicles enforcing by the governmental regulation, automobile shredder residue (ASR) was considered to treat by a thermal method with converting waste to energy. Gasification and melting experimental processes of lab (1 kg/ hour) and pilot (5 ton. day) scale were installed. ASR collected from a domestic shredding company was experimented at a lab-scale and pilot-scale gasification and melting process which is similar to the shaft type gasification melting furnace. The characteristics of syngas, tar and residue (slag) generated from a conversion process (gasification and melting) were analyzed to provide the information to further utilize them as fuel and recyclable materials in scaled up plants. A series of experiments have been conducted with various air equivalent ratios (ERs), and syngas compositions, carbon conversion efficiency, heating value of syngas, yield and characteristics of slag were analyzed. Finally, slags generated from the process were recycled with various alternative technologies. In summary, energy conversion technology of ASR with the least production of residue by gasification and slag utilization has been developed. The main components in product gas were H2, CO, CH4 and CO2; and concentrations of C2H4 and C2H6 were less. This can be used as clean fuel gas whose heating value ranged from 2.5 to 14.0 MJ/ m3. Most of slag generated from the process can further be fabricated to valuable and usable products. Such combined technology would result in achieving almost zero waste release from ELVs. (author)