WM-21-966R Revised Manuscript clean.pdf (1.87 MB)
Characterization of municipal solid waste residues for hydrothermal liquefaction into liquid transportation fuels
journal contribution
posted on 2022-01-25, 16:08 authored by Onyi Okoligwe, Tanja RaduTanja Radu, Mark LeaperMark Leaper, Jonathan WagnerJonathan WagnerThis paper presents and evaluates a new method for characterising municipal solid waste residues for assessing the performance of thermochemical conversion technologies to produce fuels. The method combines information from three complementary analytical techniques to estimate the quantity of key organic waste fractions and was demonstrated using two commercial waste residues: ‘BRDF’ and ‘Floc’ produced from the mechanical processing of domestic waste. Cellulose content (mostly paper and textiles) is estimated using acid hydrolysis, while thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) are combined to determine the plastics (LDPE and PET) and non-volatile fractions such as lignin of the wastes. High mass balance closures were achieved for both residues, although the nature of the non-volatile fraction was difficult to verify. Hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of cellulose rich BRDF (34.0% cellulose) produced much higher biooil yields than Floc (26.8% and 12.2%, respectively), with a cellulose content of only 22.4%. In both cases, most of the plastic and non-volatile waste fractions partitioned into the solid HTL product, representing a potential method for separating the plastic fractions from other waste components. Importantly, this combined waste characterization method can be used for characterization of any municipal waste residue using acid hydrolysis, TGA and FTIR data, providing accurate information about feedstock composition. It enables comparison between different waste valorisation studies of complex waste residues.
Funding
Royal Society (RGS\R1\191135)
History
School
- Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Department
- Chemical Engineering
Published in
Waste ManagementVolume
140Pages
133 - 142Publisher
Elsevier BVVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Rights holder
© ElsevierPublisher statement
This paper was accepted for publication in the journal Waste Management and the definitive published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2022.01.026.Acceptance date
2022-01-17Publication date
2022-01-22Copyright date
2022ISSN
0956-053XPublisher version
Language
- en