Reactivity Studies of Sludge and Biomass Combustion

Sludge and biomass are wastes with energy value. Both can provide a renewable energy in the form of gaseous fuels through thermal conversion processes. Proper understanding of the thermal properties and reaction kinetic of sludge and biomass is important for efficient design, operation and modeling of the conversion process. This study was carried out to obtain the kinetics data of the sludge and biomass in pure oxygen atmosphere at 30 mlmin-1 with the combustion temperature ranging from 50 to 900oC. The effect of sample size and heating rate on thermal degradation were studied and kinetic parameters of sludge, bagasse and sawdust combustion were described using Arrhenius equation. Two distinct reaction zones were observed for sludge, bagasse and sawdust samples. The activation energy and pre-exponential factors, in the first zone were found to be significantly higher than that of the second zone where as the opposite way for sawdust.