Investigation on the combustion possibility of dry sewage sludge as a pulverized fuel of thermal power plant

Combustion possibility of three dry sludges as pulverized fuel of coal power plant like sub-bituminous Minco coal was studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and Drop Tube Furnace (DTF). TGA results showed that the fixed carbon contained with minor content in dry sludge was slowly burned than it of Minco coal. The linear regression for the Arrhenius plot to the experimental data is very good, and activation energies for overall combustion of Minco coal and DDSS are 64.382 and 26.799 kJ/mol, respectively. But, combustion patterns of KDSS and SDSS divided into devolatilization and oxidation reaction. It was derived that activation energies for the devolatilization of KDSS and SDSS are 27.127 and 12.571 kJ/mol in reciprocal proportion to volatile matter content, the fixed carbon combustion derives to 45.289 kJ/mol for KDSS, 33.777 kJ/mol for SDSS. Test results show that the volatile content in sludge significantly improved the combustion reactivity whereas the time for the combustion completion delayed. The conversion behavior of the coals and sludge observed in DTF was similar to that reflected in TGA. DTF studies showed that the individual sludge was lower conversion than the Minco coal, but the combustion of most sludge was completed at residence time of around 1 s, set temperature range of 1200 °C similar to commercial coal fired plant. These high IDT of sludge ashes with minimum 1214 °C are not expected to be associated with slagging and fouling in pulverized coal fired systems.