Experimental investigation of sorted municipal solid wastes producer gas composition in an updraft fixed bed gasifier

Abstract

Three kinds of municipal solid waste (MSW) from mechanical biological treatment plants, i.e., Fraction after Drum Separator (FDS), Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) and Plastic Packaging Mixture (PPM), were investigated. These samples were gasified in fixed-bed updraft gasifier under allothermal (800 °C) air supply conditions. Two different air equivalence ratios (ER), i.e., 0.15 ± 0.02 and 0.21 ± 0.04 were created to determine the influence on MSW producer gas properties. Derivative thermogravimetry analysis shows the same volatile release temperatures (330 °C, 500 °C) for all tested MSW kinds. Chromatography analysis of MSW producer gas revealed that the reduction of ER from 0.21 to 0.15 increase the heating value of combustible gases. PPM producer gas contains the highest H2 content – 11.39 %. The highest tar content (47.44 g/m3) was measured in SRF producer gas and primarily consisted of benzene, toluene, naphthalene, and acenaphthylene. The results of the sorted MSW gasification experiments show that the allothermal updraft fixed-bed gasifier is suitable for the production of producer gas that can be used in gas engines.