Abstract
Dewatered sewage sludge is one of the largest contributors of waste material in Malaysia and it indirectly elevates local environmental problems. Previous studies have indicated sewage sludge as a potential alternative fuel based on its higher heating values. To explore sewage sludge as an alternative solid fuel will not only address energy demand issues, it will also mitigate long term disposal problems related with the waste material. Further information on combustion characteristics of this material is required before any links to power generation applications can be established. In this work the combustion characteristics of Malaysian sewage sludge was studied by means of thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) under different heating rates (10, 20 30 and 40 K/min). Non-isothermal thermogravimetric data were used to assess the kinetics of the combustion of sewage sludge by the application of Ozawa-Flynn- Wall and Vyazovkin kinetic models. The average activation energies were found to be 82 and 79 kJ/ mol respectively. The average reaction order corresponding to sewage sludge combustion was 0.11.
Highlights
The objective of this paper is to fill in the research gap in characterization studies of sewage sludge using non-isothermal thermogravimetric kinetic analysis by applying the Ozawa–Flynn– Wall (Ozawa, 1965; Flynn and Wall, 1966) and the Vyazovkin (Vyazovkin, 1997) kinetic models, which, will allow the calculation of the activation energy and reaction order of sewage sludge combustion
The Ozawa–Flynn–Wall approach was found to result in higher activation energy values compared to the Vyazovkin and Lesnikovick approach and this finding is consistent with earlier work by [4], [10]
Comparing previous work to the results presented in this paper, the activation energies of sewage sludge appear to vary significantly. This observation is believed to be related to the content and to the structure of the samples which is a direct result of the process used in the sewage treatment plants [3]
Summary
Other related studies investigated the co – combustion of sewage sludge with coal using TGA [3], [4], [6], [9]–[11] In these studies, a wide range of variation in the values of the kinetic parameters and the TGA DTG characteristics were observed for sewage sludge. The objective of this paper is to fill in the research gap in characterization studies of sewage sludge using non-isothermal thermogravimetric kinetic analysis by applying the Ozawa–Flynn– Wall (Ozawa, 1965; Flynn and Wall, 1966) and the Vyazovkin (Vyazovkin, 1997) kinetic models, which, will allow the calculation of the activation energy and reaction order of sewage sludge combustion
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