Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 423437

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RDF production plants: I Design and costs

Antonio C. Caputo, Pacico M. Pelagagge *
Faculty of Engineering, University of LAquila, 67040 Monteluco, LAquila, Italy Received 21 June 2001; accepted 5 October 2001

Abstract Municipal solid waste (MSW) management calls for the integration of dierent recovery, recycling and disposal technologies. Among these possible options, MSW may be treated in order to obtain a fuel to be sold to third party users or directly utilized to generate electricity provided it is of sucient quality to be employed instead of traditional fuels. In this two-part paper the problem of producing refuse derived fuel (RDF) having a high heating value (LHV > 4000 kcal/kg) has been examined from a technical and economic viewpoint. In the rst part article a technical assessment of production plants is carried out. Dierent production lines have been thus compared in terms of mass eciency, heating value of produced RDF and treatment cost highlighting how the choice of process equipment aects the system performances. As a result the process plant congurations enabling to meet the required product specications are identied. The inuence of mixing a high caloric waste such as scrap tires with the stream of household waste, in the limits allowed by current regulation, has been also analyzed and found to be a prerequisite to meet the prescribed heating value target. Economic feasibility and nancial risk of RDF production plants have been successively evaluated in the second part article over a capacity range of 25200 t/h considering also integrated facilities including compost production and/or electricity generation. The analysis has been carried out with reference to the current Italian market scenario even if it has a general applicability and its relevance is wider geographically. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Refuse derived fuel production; Waste to energy plant; Economic analysis; Waste management; Waste treatment; Municipal solid waste; Material recovery facility

1. Introduction Urban solid waste management is a critical issue in most countries, requiring an integrated system approach to be faced in an eective manner. In fact, a correct balance among the various
*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +39-0862-434-316; fax: +39-0862-434-303. E-mail address: pelmar@ing.univaq.it (P.M. Pelagagge).

1359-4311/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 1 3 5 9 - 4 3 1 1 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 1 0 0 - 4

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Nomenclature ACC AV BC D DE E ECS HS LHV M MS MSW OIR OR P PT RDF S SE T air classier with cyclone actual value ballistic classier dryer densier extruder eddy current separator hand sorting low heating value mill magnetic separator municipal solid waste other inorganic residue organic residue pelletizer preliminary trommel screen refuse derived fuel shredder simulation error trommel screen

available recovery, recycling and disposal technology options for waste treatment has to be found while respecting economic constraints, existing local and state regulations, environmental issues and taking into account public acceptance. In this framework one of the options advocated by waste management planners and government regulations is the recovery of material and energy from municipal solid waste (MSW) through production of a refuse derived fuel (RDF) [1,2]. RDF presents several advantages as a fuel respect untreated MSW. The main benets are the higher heating value which also remains fairly constant, the homogeneity of physicalchemical composition, the ease of storage, handling, and transportation, the lower pollutant emissions and a reduced excess air requirement during combustion [35]. Current regulations are setting high quality standards for RDF, so that it can be readily accepted as a substitute or auxiliary fuel in most combustion system with minor modications [6]. However, production of high caloric value RDF asks for complex production lines leading to a low mass eciency, intended as the ratio of produced RDF mass to the inlet untreated waste mass [5,79]. With the higher desired LHV, there are a greater number of separation steps and a lower mass of output RDF, given the same inlet quantity of MSW. This leads to high production costs which reduce the market appeal of the product. Scrap tires may also be mixed to MSW in order to reach the prescribed LHV value, but this may represent an added cost. In Europe, referring to European Union data [10,11], an average 62.6% of the total waste amount is landlled, 21.9% is incinerated, 4.5% is composted and 11.0% is recycled. However,

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such percentages vary widely among countries: as an example the incinerated fraction may grow up to 53% in Denmark, 58% in Luxembourg and 49% in France. In the USA, referring to 1998 data, 28% of MSW is recycled, including composting, 55% is landlled and 17% is combusted [12]. As far as the current Italian situation is concerned, referring to 1997 data [11], 80% of MSW is landlled, 9.4% is treated in compost or RDF producing plants, 6.6% is burned in incineration facilities (with or without waste-to-energy systems), while the remaining 4% is disposed by other technologies. In this scenario the current regulations strongly advocate a reduction of landlled mass resorting to separate waste collection (to reach 35% of generated MSW by 2003 in Italy) and thermal utilization of waste including RDF production in particular. Therefore, regulations specifying strict quality standards for RDF are being issued in most countries. Italian requirements for example specify the RDF characteristics as indicated in Table 1. However, compliance with such strict limits will be dicult also for RDF production plants built in the near past. A recent survey in fact indicated that only 4% of RDF samples taken from current plants in Italy would meet the new standards [13]. Nevertheless, the new regulation allows the mixing of MSW with plastics having a high caloric value. In particular, scrap tires (LHV about 5000 kcal/kg) may be used up to a mass percentage of 50% in order to meet the minimum RDF low heating value of 3584 kcal/kg (15 000 kJ/kg). Utilization of scrap tires has the added advantage that no pre-selection is necessary; they are already separated from MSW. In the future, however, availability problems could arise if large scale utilization were applied in a high percentage at most production plants, considering that scrap tires in some countries may already have an established market in remanufacturing applications, as tire derived fuel (TDF) in cement kilns, pulp and paper mills, industrial furnaces and utility boilers, as well in civil engineering application as a lightweight ll material [14,15]. In order to eectively plan waste management activities it is therefore important to assess under which technical conditions an RDF plant may be able to produce a RDF that meets the prescribed quality standards and the economic feasibility to undertake such an investment. In this paper a technical analysis of MSW treatment plants is carried out in order to dene the proper line conguration suited to produce RDF having a high caloric value, in excess of 4000 kcal/kg, and evaluate how equipment choice and composition of input waste stream aect plant performance. Assessment of equipment cost for RDF production lines has been also presented on the
Table 1 Required quality characteristics of RDF in Italy Minimum LHV (kcal/kg) Max moisture content (% by wt.) Max ash content (% by wt.dry basis) Max Cl content (% by wt.) Max S content (% by wt.) Max volatile Pb content (mg/kgdry basis) Max Cr content (mg/kgdry basis) Max soluble Cu content (mg/kgdry basis) Max Mn content (mg/kgdry basis) Max Ni content (mg/kgdry basis) Max As content (mg/kgdry basis) Max Cd Hg content (mg/kgdry basis) 3584 25 20 0.9 0.6 200 100 300 400 40 9 7

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basis of market data. Economic feasibility and nancial risk of RDF production plants will be evaluated in the second part of this paper on the basis of the Net Present Value index over a wide capacity range comparing either single RDF production plants and facilities also integrating compost production and/or electricity generation.

2. RDF production lines characterization 2.1. Line architecture An RDF production line consists of several stations arranged in series as a train and performing unit operations aimed at separating unwanted components and conditioning the combustible matter in order to obtain an RDF of predetermined characteristics. This is accomplished through successive treatment stages of screening, shredding, size reduction, classication, separation, drying and densication; although the actual line composition will depend from specic site conditions [5,7,8,16]. In fact the type, number, and position of process equipment along the production line heavily aect the mass balance and the quality of the end product. The number of possible trains developed from a given number of unit operations (usually trains of four to six operations are adopted) becomes very large [17]. However, to discern the practicality and feasibility of dierent trains, some rules of thumbs may be dened. Such guidelines will be briey discussed here and successively adopted when dening the actual lines investigated. As a general rule, the MSW treatment line should start with a shredding or screening stage; otherwise the following equipment would suer from low eciency. However, if a line starts with a shredder it would suer from frequent jams because of hard-to-shred components which had not been previously separated by screens, hand sorting, magnetic separation or air classiers. This would cause the entire line to go down. To place more than twice the same equipment on a line is not advisable as the added cost would not be justied by the low eciency increment. Screens are an exception as they perfect and supplement the action of shredders and mills and always need to be placed after such unit operations. It is also useless to repeat the same operation consecutively unless an intermediate size reduction is present. The simultaneous presence of a shredder and a mill is not a redundancy as the mill improves the rough size reduction process carried out by the shredder. However, if the refuse has not been previously shredded the mill throughput is reduced and its energy consumption increased. In any case a mill should be always preceded by a magnetic separation or air classication to avoid excessive wear due to presence of metal scrap. If a parallel composting line is employed, precautions must be taken that the separated inorganic components from the RDF line (glass, metals) do not pollute the compost. Therefore it is necessary to start the RDF line with a screen to avoid shredded glass or metal entering the composting process. Moreover the rst shredder should be installed following a hand sorting/ magnetic separation or eddy current/hand sorting system to preliminarily separate the glass. To this end the eddy current/magnetic separation combination would be unsuitable. Finally a hand sorting stage cannot operate on already shredded refuse.

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Correct design of a RDF production plant is a delicate task due to a number of factors. First the exact composition of MSW is dicult to forecast and is likely to change over time. Furthermore, process equipment is often derived from other industrial sectors (i.e. mineral industry) and may not be optimized for MSW, resulting in reliability problems. Finally, machine dimensions are standardized and a correct match among dierent unit operations is dicult to achieve. This means that some stations are used in multiple parallel trains and that there is a practical capacity limit to a single line so that higher capacity plants have to be constructed by placing several lines in parallel, losing benets from economy of scale. However, design stage errors often lead to reduced throughput and a nal product of lower quality than expected with heavy economic penalties. 2.2. Process design In order to compare performances of dierent RDF production lines a computer model has been developed to carry out mass balances according to the recovery factor transform function (RFTF) matrix method developed by Diaz et al. [9]. In MSW sorting plants each process units performs a binary separation process on the incoming stream generating a main output stream and a secondary stream of separated material. According to Diaz the RFTF for a process unit is a diagonal matrix whose elements specify the fraction of each of the waste components that remain in the primary material stream after unit processing occurs. If R is the RFTF then the elements in the complementary matrix R0 I R, where I is the identity matrix, are the fractions of each component in the secondary waste stream, i.e. in the material stream that is separated by the process unit. Therefore if the input to the system is the vector U, whose elements specify the quantities of each of the waste components contained in the processed stream, then the quantities of the waste components in the output stream and the separated stream are respectively represented by the elements of vectors X and Y where X RU and Y R0 U I RU. This approach may be applied to either refuse components on a dry weight basis and component moisture content (free water) lending itself to also calculate useful bulk properties such as moisture content, heating value and ash content and is of straightforward application on a spreadsheet. The entries in the RFTF matrix R must be determined analytically or empirically from eld data. The RFTFs utilized in this work are shown are in Table 2. Mass balances have been carried out considering the MSW composition indicated in Table 3 [9]. The model has been validated by simulating mass balances for several existing RDF producing facilities in Italy and comparing results with actual plant data, obtaining satisfying results even with RDF lines having very dierent structures as shown in Table 4. The mass eciency error is in the 13% range while the low heating value estimation error is lower than 2%, except the single case of the Macomer Plant, probably due to the fact that some constructive peculiarities exist in the equipment adopted in this very simply structured line. 2.3. Cost data Besides the low heating value of produced RDF and the line mass eciency, another important evaluation parameter is the treatment cost. In order to compare dierent lines from this perspective, the direct production cost has been estimated using the hourly equipment amortization

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Table 2 Recovery factor transfer function matrix components Equipment Shredder Hammermill Trommel screen (ne) Preliminary screen (coarse Trommel or Pretrommel) Air classier Shredded refuse Unshredded refuse Ballistic classier Magnetic separator Eddy current separator Hand sorting Dryer Densier, Extruder, Pelletizer Fraction Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Fe 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.41 0.41 Al 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.37 0.37 Glass 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.2 0.2 0.01 0.01 Paper 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.85 0.85 0.69 0.69 Plastics 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.9 0.9 0.62 0.62 OIR 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.25 0.25 0.02 0.02 OR 1.0 0.8 1.0 0.6 0.25 0.25 0.11 0.11

Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture Refuse Moisture

0.1 0.09 0.1 0.09 0.1 0.1 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.9 0.9 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

0.8 0.72 0.5 0.45 0.8 0.8 1.0 1.0 0.1 0.1 0.5 0.5 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

0.7 0.63 0.02 0.018 0.7 0.7 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.7 0.7 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

0.98 0.882 0.98 0.882 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

0.98 0.882 0.98 0.882 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 0.98 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

0.2 0.18 0.15 0.135 0.2 0.2 1.0 1.0 0.95 0.95 0.7 0.7 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

0.7 0.63 0.4 0.36 0.6 0.6 0.95 0.95 0.98 0.98 0.9 0.9 1.0 0.3 1.0 1.0

Table 3 Assumed composition of MSW Component Iron Aluminium Glass Paper Plastic OIR OR % 1.5 1.0 5.0 27.0 14.0 0.5 51.0 Dry refuse (kg/kg MSW) 0.0135 0.009 0.045 0.216 0.126 0.004 0.204 Moisture (kg/kg MSW) 0.0015 0.001 0.005 0.054 0.014 0.001 0.306 Ash (kg/kg MSW) 0.0135 0.009 0.045 0.0108 0.0063 0.004 0.0204 LHV (kcal/kg) 0 0 0 2100 6300 0 1500

cost plus energy expenses. While this cost is not the whole production cost, it is a valid judgement criterion as it is directly linked to the line conguration. Equipment cost and performances are summarized in Table 5 based on manufacturers data (only costs of equipment utilized in the subsequent analysis are shown). Amortized costs are evaluated according to a 10 years line life,

A.C. Caputo, P.M. Pelagagge / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 423437 Table 4 Reference plants and computation results Plant Structure a b c d e f g h STMSMMS ACCTE PTHSMSST MSMT STMSMMST MPTACCMDP MMSTBC TMSACCTMS ACC MMSPTMS MTMACCP Mass eciency AV (%)/SE (%) 36.0/2.5 69.3/1.3 43.0/3.5 24.0/3.0 55.0/6.0 Moisture AV (%)/SE (%) 12.0/2.1 7.3/3.7 Ash AV (%)/SE (%) 6.5/4.6 4.8/5.2

429

LHV AV (kcal/kg RDF)/SE (%) 2900/1.1 4010/1.5 4354/0.34 4000/2.1 2100/8.9 4000/1.7 3000/1.5 3150/1.9

27.0/3.3 35.0/1.4

Legend: a: AREA (Ravenna); b: CIRSU (Giulianova); c: Consorzio Alessandrino (Castelciriolo); d: Consorzio Smaltimento Riuti Bassa Friulana (Udine); e: Macomer (Nuoro); f: RECLAS (Frosinone); g: SAO (Orvieto); h: SIEM (Pieve di Coriano); AV: actual value, SE: simulation error.

Table 5 Line equipment cost data Equipment Densier Air classier Dryer Belt conveyor Hammer mill Capacity (t/h) 6 5 6 2 4 6 4 5 10 15 5 10 15 6 10 15 25 15 25 Power (kW) 5 12 140 6 200 250 300 50 2.2 2.2 2.2 3.75 6.25 6.6 25 50 50 55 20 30 Cost (kEuro) 206.58 41.31 309.87 15.49 129.11 144.60 154.93 206.58 7.23 11.87 14.97 36.15 41.83 49.57 56.81 108.45 129.11 154.93 103.29 154.93 Amortization (Euro/h) 4.73 0.95 7.09 0.35 2.96 3.31 3.55 4.73 0.83 0.96 1.14 0.17 0.27 0.34 0.00 1.30 2.48 2.96 3.55 2.36 3.55 Operating cost (Euro/h) 3.62 0.87 10.12 0.43 14.46 18.08 21.69 3.62 0.27 0.45 0.48 0.16 0.16 0.16 23.65 1.81 3.62 3.62 3.98 1.45 2.17

Pelletizer Eddy current separator Magnetic separator

Hand sorting Shredder

Trommel screen

operating six days a week on two 7-h daily shifts. Electricity cost has been assumed 0.0723 Euro/ kWh. Operating cost for the hand sorting station is based on labor cost assuming two operators per shift.

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Observation of Table 5 shows that the major impact comes from hand sorting, due to labor cost, from hammer mills, owing to their rugged construction required for the heavy size reduction task they perform, and to the dryer due to the fuel consumption. Whenever possible the human operator should be avoided, which is also advisable due to hygiene and safety considerations, but this is often dependent from the degree of separation of input MSW stream. Moreover an economic balance may be sought between operator presence and a more complex and costly line having higher eciency separation units. As far as the hammer mill is concerned an eort should be carried out to improve its eciency in order to reduce its cost as much as possible.

3. RDF types and production lines analysis Seven dierent RDF types have been classied by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) [8]: RDF-1 is MSW used as a fuel without oversize bulky waste; RDF-2 is MSW processed to coarse particle size with or without ferrous metals; RDF-3 is shredded fuel derived from MSW and processed for removal of metal, glass and other entrained inorganics, with a particle size such that 95% by weight passes through a 2-in. square mesh screen (also known as Flu RDF); RDF-4 is the combustible waste fraction processed into a powdered form, 95% by weight passing through a 10-mesh screen (also known as dust RDF or p-RDF); RDF-5 is the combustible waste fraction densied to in excess of 600 kg/m3 into the form of pellets, slugs, cubettes, briquettes etc. (also known as densied RDF or d-RDF); RDF-6 is liquid RDF while RDF-6 is gaseous RDF. A subcategory of RDF-2 is the crumb RDF subject to separation such that 95% by weight passes through a 6-in. square mesh screen and densied to about 300 kg/m3 , (also known as coarse RDF or c-RDF). However, dierent classication schemes may exist in the various countries; as an example in Great Britain three RDF categories are mainly used, i.e. c-RDF, d-RDF and f-RDF, this latter being an undensied ock RDF roughly corresponding to dust RDF. In this work the search for the preferred line architecture has been carried out considering only reference scenarios characterized by the production of u, dust, densied, and coarse RDF. Furthermore, the eect of input stream composition has been analyzed: at rst lines treating only MSW are considered, then a mix of MSW added with tires and chlorine-free plastics in a percentage rising from 10% to 50% (the maximum limit allowed by Italian regulation) are evaluated. The analysis was mainly aimed at identifying the conditions needed to obtain a high quality RDF (LHV > 4000 kcal/kg). 3.1. Flu and dust RDF production In case of u RDF production the simulation results are shown in Table 6. For each considered line the table shows its conguration, i.e. the list of successive unit operations performed, and its performances described in terms of line mass eciency (i.e. the ratio of produced RDF mass to inlet waste mass), the specic RDF production cost, and produced RDF properties including the moisture and ash content. Line #1 is a basic line starting with a preliminary screening station. However, it shows poor performances as the target LHV value of 4000 kcal/kg is not reached even if the mass eciency is lower than 20%. In line #2 the basic line is modied by substituting the preliminary screening with

A.C. Caputo, P.M. Pelagagge / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 423437 Table 6 Performance of u RDF production lines at varying input waste mix Line # Line conguration MSW input Eciency fraction (%) (%) 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 80 80 80 70 70 60 60 50 50 18.3 24.9 24.3 23.8 24.1 24.0 20.9 20.5 20.3 30.7 24.7 24.1 23.7 23.6 31.9 28.2 27.8 27.6 27.6 37.3 31.8 38.9 43.5 38.6 45.8 49.9 53.5 56.3 59.4 62.8 Moisture (%) 8.76 9.05 9.0 9.0 9.1 9.1 6.9 6.9 6.9 10.7 7.4 7.4 7.4 7.4 7.8 6.0 5.9 6.0 6.0 9.65 6.8 7.1 8.2 5.8 6.6 7.5 7.2 6.9 5.13 6.4 Ash (%) 6.0 6.67 6.28 6.22 5.3 5.28 6.42 6.06 5.23 8.5 7.7 7.3 5.5 5.3 6.15 5.9 5.7 5.1 5.1 7.6 6.9 5.83 6.9 6.3 5.6 6.4 5.4 6.1 5.35 5.8

431

LHV Production (kcal/kg RDF) cost (Euro/t RDF) 3478 3388 3403 3406 3434 3438 3546 3559 3590 3152 3409 3424 3488 3494 3792 3961 3977 3999 4001 3544 3804 4050 3846 4083 4230 4060 4310 4225 4499 4355 16.56 15.07 15.64 16.18 15.93 16.19 20.15 20.78 21.18 9.48 12.45 12.97 13.37 13.59 12.26 15.50 15.32 15.60 15.76 9.26 10.17 11.85 9.68 10.19 10.47 7.54 9.12 6.82 8.47 6.12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 2 7 8 9 15 10 11 2 10 11 2 10 2 10 2 10
a

PTHSMSSTMT THSMSSTMT THSMSSTMS MT THSMSSTMS MTMS THSMSSTECS MT THSECSSTECS MT THSMSSTST MT THSMSSTMSS TMT THSMSSTECS STMT STMSMT STMSSTMT STMSSTMSM T STECSSTMSM T STECSSTECS MT THSMSSTMT THSMSSTST MT THSMSSTMSS TMT THSMSSTECS STMT THSECSSTECS STMT STMSMT STMSSTMT THSMSSTMTa STMSMT STMSSTMT THSMSSTMTa STMSMT THSMSSTMTa STMSMT THSMSSTMTa STMSMT

Line suitable to feed a parallel compost producing plant.

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a trommel screen leading to a higher mass eciency, nearly 25% and reduced RDF cost even if the LHV is slightly decreased due to the increased presence of poor heating value components in the RDF. In line #3 a further MS is added to line #2. However, there is a reduction of mass eciency and an increased cost due to the insertion of a new station with only a negligible increment of LHV. Also the addition of a third MS is useless (line #4). In line #5 and #6 the second one and both MS of line #3 are respectively substituted with an ECS, but this change proves to be uneective. A performance improvement may be attempted by adding a new shredding station as shown in line #7. A net increase in LHV is observed, although still insucient to reach the required value of 4000 kcal/kg, at the expense of a lower eciency and a higher cost. The further addition of a MS in line #8 does not improve performances. In line #9 the second MS is substituted with an ECS obtaining a LHV greater than the target value, but at the expense of a signicant cost increment. In following lines, starting with line #10, a shredder is utilized as the rst process step. The impossibility of placing a hand sorting station greatly reduces costs but also causes an increased content of inerts leading to a higher mass eciency but a low LHV which cannot be improved by simply adding magnetic or ECSs. A further shredding stage is then added in line #11 obtaining a LHV increase followed by the obvious decrease of mass eciency. Performances are only slightly improved by adding magnetic and/or ECSs (lines #12, 13, 14). It may be concluded that utilization of sole MSW to produce RDF meeting the target value of 4000 kcal/ kg proves to be nearly impossible even when a complex separation line is adopted with numerous process steps. To sum up, variation of RDF production cost and line mass eciency versus the RDF low heating value are shown in Figs. 1 and 2 for lines treating 100% MSW. When an input waste mix containing 10% of scrap tires is assumed instead the performances are greatly improved in terms of heating value showing the benet of adding scrap tires or similar high LHV plastics even when a type #2 line is utilized. To further improve performances a new shredding stage is introduced (corresponding to line #7) as the addition of further magnetic or electrostatic separators has been proven to be scarcely eective. A signicant increase of LHV is

Fig. 1. Treatment cost vs heating value when processing pure MSW.

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433

Fig. 2. Mass eciency vs heating value when processing pure MSW.

observed even if mass eciency reduces while costs inevitably grow. Further improvements are achieved by adding magnetic or electrostatic separators (line #8, 9, 15) which produces RDF meeting the target LHV. Passing to lines starting with a shredder (line #10) signicantly worsens performances and also the addition of a further shredding stage (line #11) does not help reach the target LHV. Summing up, even the addition of only 10% of high energy value refuse as tires enabled one to reach the target LHV of 4000 kcal/kg at a lower cost (around 15.493 Euro/kg) compared to pure MSW fed lines as shown in Figs. 3 and 4. Increasing the tire content to 20% enables a type #2 line to achieve greater than 4000 kcal/kg LHV, however, this does not happen for a type #10 line, which requires the addition of another

Fig. 3. Treatment cost vs heating value when processing 90% MSW and 10% scrap tires.

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Fig. 4. Mass eciency vs heating value when processing 90% MSW and 10% scrap tires.

shredder stage (line #11) in order to meet LHV specication. This percent of tires allows the production of high quality RDF with a small and low cost line. Further increasing the tires content to 30% improves the performances of a type #2 line with signicant increase in mass eciency and lowered cost. Furthermore, this input mix enables a simple type #10 line, starting with a shredder, to meet the target LHV at very low cost and high mass eciency. This trend is conrmed when tires content increases to 40% of waste input mix needed to exceed the 50% mass eciency threshold and 4300 kcal/kg LHV value. Finally, when the tire percentage reaches 50% of input ow, the maximum amount allowed by law, the mass eciency exceeds 60% with production cost as low as 6.2 Euro/t RDF. In Table 6 the lines utilizing 20% or more of scrap tires and producing an RDF having a low heating value in excess of 4000 kcal/kg are highlighted also showing the lines suited to feed a parallel compost producing facility. The same considerations hold for lines producing dust RDF. In fact, the only dierence with u RDF producing lines is in the nal size reduction operation where hammer mills are substituted by knife shredders having similar cost, capacity, and installed power. 3.2. Densied RDF production In order to ease storage and transportation the u RDF may be densied using conditioning equipment like a densier, a cuber or a pelletizer. This operation does not change line eciency or RDF low heating value but modies the RDF density. Pelletizers produce a high density RDF (about 700 kg/m3 ) which may be unsuitable for some kinds of combustors like uidized beds, while simple densiers produce a lower density fuel (300400 kg/m3 ). Starting from the u RDF producing lines of Table 6 meeting the 4000 kcal/kg target value a densier/pelletization station has been added computing the resulting production cost as shown in Table 7. A further drying process step has not been included, although feasible, as the moisture content is already low and

A.C. Caputo, P.M. Pelagagge / Applied Thermal Engineering 22 (2002) 423437 Table 7 Performance of densied RDF production lines at varying input waste mix Line # Line conguration THSMSS TMTDE/Pa STMSST MTDE/P THSMSS TMTDE/Pa STMSMT DE/P THSMSS TMTDE/Pa STMSMT DE/P THSMSS TMTDE/Pa STMSMT DE/P MSW input fraction (%) 80 80 70 70 60 60 50 50 Eciency (%) 38.9 38.6 45.8 49.9 53.5 56.3 59.4 62.8 Moisture (%) 7.1 5.8 6.6 7.5 7.2 6.9 5.13 6.4 LHV (kcal/kg RDF) 4050 4083 4230 4060 4310 4225 4499 4355 Production cost (Euro/t RDF) Densied 2 11 2 10 2 10 2 10
a

435

Pelletized 13.57 11.92 11.93 8.88 9.75 7.42 9.04 6.65

12.71 11.05 11.20 8.21 9.75 7.42 9.04 6.65

Line suitable to feed a parallel compost producing plant.

the LHV is suciently high. Cubers and extruders have a similar capacity and costs as pelletizers, therefore no further distinction has been made among such process units. 3.3. Coarse RDF production Coarse RDF is refuse shredded to a size of 1015 cm from which ferrous components may or may not be separated. Therefore the production line will be made up of a shredder followed by a screen with the optional presence of a MS. In this case a variable amount of tires in the input stream is considered and the results are shown in Table 8.

Table 8 Performance of coarse RDF production lines at varying input waste mix Line # 16 17 16 16 16 16 16 17 Line structure ST STMS ST ST ST ST ST STMS MSW input fraction (%) 100 100 90 80 70 60 50 50 Eciency (%) 48.66 46.47 53.59 58.53 63.5 68.4 73.33 71.25 Moisture (%) 22.73 22.77 20.06 17.85 15.9 14.38 12.99 12.92 Ash (%) 12.75 10.8 8.89 8.9 7.42 6.83 6.33 5.81 LHV (kcal/kg RDF) 2418 2476 2815 3146 3425 3664 3870 3902 Production cost (Euro/t RDF) 1.28 1.52 1.16 1.07 0.98 0.80 0.75 0.84

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In both cases the treatment of a pure MSW stream and mixing with scrap tires up to the allowed limit does not reach a sucient RDF heating value. While the addition of the MS reduces the mass eciency, there is only a minor increase of LHV. Even if mass eciency may grow to in excess of 70% and the production cost may be as low as about 0.75 Euro/t, the poor LHV prevents the development of a signicant market share for this kind of RDF. Therefore it will not be considered in the subsequent economic analysis carried out in the second part of this article.

4. Conclusions In this work an extensive technical analysis of RDF production plants has been carried out to investigate the feasibility of producing a high caloric value product as advocated by current regulations, which is also a prerequisite for eective utilization of this fuel in actual industrial furnaces or utility boilers. According to the desired type of RDF to be produced the inuence of dierent choices of process equipment and line architectures have been examined by evaluating the line mass eciency and the heating value of produced RDF in order to dene the most suitable plants able to meet the required RDF quality levels at minimum cost. Furthermore, the necessity of mixing a variable amount of scrap tires to the inlet MSW stream has been recognized as a fundamental prerequisite in order to obtain the required RDF heating value.

References
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