(511i) Hydrogen Rich Fuel Gas from Refuse Plastic Fuel by Gasification

With a growth in industry and economy, the amount of municipal solid wastes (MSW) has been increasing. Increasing MSW and industrial wastes resulted in to a serious environmental problem. Thus, it was necessary to dispose of large quantities of MSW as well as industrial waste. Gasification process is one of the several technologies for converting wastes into energy resources and reducing the volume of solid wastes to be landfilled. This process has been used as an energy-efficient technique for reducing the volume of solid waste and the recovery of energy. Essentially, the process involves partial combustion of waste to generate a combustible fuel gas consist of H₂, CH₄ and CO. In this study, gasification for hydrogen production was carried out using Refuse Plastic Fuel (RPF) which was derived from MSW. RPF consisted of approximately 60% plastic and some other waste materials with moisture. It was useful to reach the results because RPF was made of more homogeneous organic compounds than MSW. In order to maximize hydrogen production, the treatment was carried out at high temperatures (700~1000°C) with steam generator. The target gas was analyzed by gas chromatograph with a thermal conductive detector and found to contain a good amount of H₂, CH₄ and CO, respectively.