Co-combustion of organic industrial and municipal solid wastes in Shanghai: Evaluation based on energy recovery, thermal behavior and gases pollutants emissions

The imperative for efficient recycling and treatment of organic industrial solid waste (OISW) has spurred the integration of co-combustion strategies with municipal solid wastes (MSW) in recent years in China. Herein, we conducted a detailed analysis of five years data on the production and classification of industrial solid wastes in Shanghai and employed the response surface methodology (RSM) and grey correlation analysis (GCA) to optimizing the blending ratios of five distinct types OISW for their co-combustion with MSW. Proximate and elemental analysis was conducted to analyze the chemical composition of each OISW. The combustion kinetic and typical parameters such as activation energy, ignition and burnout temperatures, comprehensive combustion index of individual OISW and their blending with MSW were examined by Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The influences on energy recovery and pollutant gases emissions were assessed and the accuracy was verified by using the Grey artificial neural network (GANN) model. The results indicated that at a 30 % blending ratio of industrial solid waste, the optimal proportions for sewage sludge, waste wood, waste plastic, textile waste, and waste paper were 32.15 %, 5.14 %, 14.32 %, 1.92 %, and 46.47 %, respectively. The optimized blend achieved a significant 29 % decrease in overall carbon emissions and a notable 23 % increase in the energy recovery rate. In this circumstance, the emissions of HCl, SO2 and NOx, were measured at 2.07 mg/m3, 33.46 mg/m3 and 194.81 mg/m3, respectively, all of which are well below the national standards (GB18485-2014) for the emission of flue gas from MSW incineration in China.