Evaluating the energy potential of gas synthesis obtained from the destruction and gasification of hazardous hospital waste with a melting-plasma reactor

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Mechanics, Electricity and Computer, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch,, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Mechanical engineering, Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

4 Plasma Physics research Center, Science and Research Branch, Azad Islamic University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

The gasification process of hospital waste, unlike traditional methods such as sterilization and burying waste and conventional incineration, has the ability to use the resulting synthetic gas to produce power and electricity in addition to satisfying environmental standards. In this article, the biomedical wastes of Farhikhtegan Hospital in Tehran were gasified with a molten plasma gasifier reactor that has a 90 kW torch. Three parameters of equivalence ratio, temperature, and gasification factor are considered to be effective factors in the molten-plasma gasification reactor, by keeping equivalence ratio parameters and gasification factor fixed, the gasification process was carried out at different temperatures for the gasification reactor and the gas synthesis resulting from It was analyzed elementally and the percentage of gases that make up gas synthesis includes; CO, H2, CO2, and CH4 were determined. At the temperature of 1400 ℃, the amount of CO and H2 gases were measured as 37.1‌% and 32‌%, respectively, and at this temperature, the high heat value (HHV) of the gas synthesis mixture was 9.635 MJ/kg. Also, pollutants such as; H2S, NO2, and SO2 were observed in a very small amount in gas synthesis analysis. In the second phase of this research, the thermodynamic equilibrium modeling of the gasification process of this waste was investigated with Aspen Plus software in the temperature range of 1000 to 1800 ℃. All gasification sub-processes including; Drying, pyrolysis, partial combustion, and regeneration were modeled in equilibrium with the modules in the software. The results of this modeling of the gasification process were in very good agreement with the experimental results. And the next part of the gasification model was combined with the heater turbine, to check the amount of available electricity.

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References

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Amirkabir Journal of Mechanical Engineering
Volume 56, Issue 2
2024
Pages 295-318

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