Biochemical Methane Potential of the Liquid Phase from Hydrothermal Carbonization of Municipal Solid Waste
College
Batten College of Engineering & Technology
Program
Ph.D. Engineering - Civil & Environmental Engineering
Publication Date
3-28-2019
Abstract
We have a problem, in 2015, the EPA reported that Americans generated over 254 million tons of trash; 57% (landfilled), 16% (incinerated), and 27% (recycled/composted). MSW landfills are the third largest source of human related methane emissions which have 23 times more greenhouse gas trapping potential then CO2. Improvements in terms of waste management and energy production can be solved by integrating MSW processing with hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) and anaerobic digestion (AD) to reduce waste to landfills and maximize the organic carbon and resource recovery. A mixture of known composition (paper, plastic, metal, glass, food) representing waste that typically goes to the landfill has been created for testing under the proposed process. The purpose of this particular study was to 1) investigate carbonization experiments at varying temperatures (250, 280, 310 °C) and times (10 min, 1 h, 6 h) 2) evaluate liquid phase and biochar properties 3) preform AD bench scale bottle test on liquid phase to generate experimental data on biogas yields to understand biodegradability. Mass balance shows that 22-48% of carbon remained in the solid phase, 33-45% in the liquid phase and 15-44% in the gas phase. The condition of 280°C at 10 min yielded the highest TOC of 8.0 g/L with biogas yields of 222 g biogas/g TOC. Liquid phase will be tested for biochemical methane potential as the next series of analysis based off biogas yields from anaerobic digestion.
Files
Recommended Citation
Adams, Kameron; Kumar, Sandeep; and Stuart, Ben, "Biochemical Methane Potential of the Liquid Phase from Hydrothermal Carbonization of Municipal Solid Waste" (2019). College of Engineering & Technology (Batten) Posters. 1.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/engineering_batten/1