Abstract In an effort to reduce emissions and lower fuel costs, cement plants have explored the use of waste materials to displace coal and petroleum coke. A potential candidate is… Click to show full abstract
Abstract In an effort to reduce emissions and lower fuel costs, cement plants have explored the use of waste materials to displace coal and petroleum coke. A potential candidate is non-recyclable waste plastics. Knowledge of potential changes in cement kiln parameters with a change in the composition of operating fuel prior to full-scale application is necessary for obtaining permits and for plant preparedness. Most bench-scale performance studies have targeted the prediction of full-scale stack emissions with variable degrees of success. In this work, a bench-scale tube furnace and a heated grid reactor (HGR) have been used to compare combustion and emission changes when waste plastics displace an equivalent amount of heat from the coal/coke blend. Trends in the results from bench-scale experiments on residual volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions matched full-scale observations on kiln thermal performance. Bench-scale particulate matter (PM) emissions indicated that no significant changes were likely in full-scale stack PM emissions when using waste-derived fuel (WDF). This bench-scale fuel characterization approach has been used to study the potential impact of waste plastics on the performance of a local cement kiln.
               
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