Estimated energy content of solid waste at commercial area of Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir

Abstract

The present study is an attempt to analyze the percentage generation of solid waste incommercial area of Udhampur (J&K) and to estimate the generation potentiality of energy through combustion of solid waste. The waste to energy industry has proven itself to be an environmentally friendly solution to the disposal of municipal solid waste and the production of energy.The estimation of energy content of commercial solid waste of Udhampur town is discussed in this paper. A regression equation was used for estimating the energy content of commercial solid waste. The estimation of energy content of municipal solid waste (MSW) is normally done by the use of Modified Dulong Equation (MDE). The MDE requires changing all MSW components to percentages of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), oxygen (O), nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S), which is very time-intensive effort. An easier-to-use and more practical new equation is used, which directly uses the percentages of MSW components. The observations made during the course of investigation shows that, the minimum is the percentage by weight of organic waste (vegetable and fruit waste) maximum is the energy content (kj/kg) of the waste.