(313f) Pyrolysis of Food Waste: Thermal Deconstruction Rates in a Regular Calcination Oven Vs. an Induction Heating Reactor

The wastes generated by food courts consists mainly of organic residues, paper, cardboard, plastic, wood, glass bottles and aluminum cans which are usually send to landfill. This type of food court waste (FCW) is generated in large quantities and it could be used as alternative primary energy source due to its large organic content. The purpose of this research was to obtain thermal degradation profiles through a thermochemical conversion process – pyrolysis – of FCW in two reactor configurations. The composition of FCW was determined to be 25.11% paper, 14.62% plastic, 20.39% cardboard, 33.40 organic residue, 6.17% glass, 0.02% metal, and 0.28% wood. The pyrolysis processes were performed in two pyrolysis reactors, one heated conventionally and one heated via induction heating in the temperature range of 300-800°C, in an inert environment on 30 g sample size. It was determined that the process temperature has a significant effect on the thermal degradation profiles, with the higher temperatures having significantly faster degradation rates in both conventional and induction heating reactor. As the temperature increased, the amount of char residue decreased, and its stabilization occurred in much shorter times. Degradation rates were used to determine the activation energies and pre-exponential molecular constants using Arrhenius-type relationships for both types of reactors.