Thermal Treatment of Municipal Waste in Poland on Example of RDF Pyrolysis

Abstract

In the face of the constant tightening of environmental regulations, alternative sources of fuels and energy are being increasingly sought. The European Union strives to introduce waste-free or low-waste closed-loop technologies using material and energy recovery to manage natural resources in a rational manner. Therefore, European regulations require member states to progressively restrict the amount of landfill waste. In Poland, these requirements have been included in the Act on waste and the Act on order and cleanliness in the commune. In addition, since 1 January 2016, it has been forbidden to store waste with a calorific value exceeding 6 MJ/kg, which is why in recent years there has been an increase in interest in the thermal transformation of municipal waste. Therefore, the article presents the current shape of waste management in Poland, and also introduces the dominant form of RDF management in the cement industry. Nevertheless, the capacity of cement plants is limited, and the energy use of fuels from waste encounters difficulties related to a significant reduction in pollutant emissions, which is why the use of modern installations for the thermal conversion of waste such as pyrolysis and gasification is increasingly considered. Taking into account the promising energy properties of secondary fuels obtained during the pyrolysis process, the chemical composition of gas from RDF pyrolysis was modeled for a pilot installation operating in Poland using CHEMKIN-PRO software. Determination of the combustible components allowed the calorific value of pyrolytic gas to be estimated, ranging from 28.2 - 28.7 MJ/m3. The obtained calorific value is much higher than the average calorific value of RDF (11-18MJ/kg) [1], which encourages wider use of the waste pyrolysis process in order to obtain secondary fuels with promising energy parameters. It will contribute to a further reduction in the amount of deposited waste, and thus to creating environmentally-friendly closed-loop waste management.