Co-combustion of textile residues with cardboard and waste wood in a packed bed

The combustible fraction of the municipal waste is mostly bio-derived. Energy recovery of the wastes that cannot be economically recycled is a key part of sustainable energy policy and waste management. Textile residues have high energy content. When burned alone in a packed bed system, however, their combustion efficiency is low due to the irregular propagation of the ignition front and the low burning rates. In order to achieve more efficient combustion of textile residues, a series of co-combustion tests were carried out for various mixture compositions and air flow rates in a packed bed combustor. The combustion performance of these materials was evaluated by using quantitative measures such as ignition rate, burning rate and equivalence ratio.Co-combustion of textile residues with cardboard for a textile fraction of up to 30% achieved satisfactorily high burning rate and low unburned carbon content in the bottom ash. The mixture was more resistant to convective cooling by air, which significantly expanded the range of air flow rate for combustion at high burning rates. In co-combustion with a material that has a very low ignition front speed such as waste wood, the propagation of the ignition front was governed by textile residues. Therefore, the co-combustion of textile residues can be better performed with a material having similar ignition front speeds, in which the two materials simultaneously burn at the ignition front.