Kinetics of Pyrolysis of Mixed Municipal Solid Waste-A Review

Municipal solid waste management is one of the major challenges faced by most of the developing countries like India. The scarcity of land due to large population and increasing waste production due to urbanization impose a challenge to find innovative methods for waste disposal. Thermal treatment is seen as an emerging technology which can help in reducing the volume of the waste and also extract energy and value added products during processing of the waste. However, the raw material mostly has low calorific value which causes problem for its thermal treatment. Pyrolysis, combustion and gasification are the major thermal treatment processes. Pyrolysis, found more promising than other processes, is discussed in this paperin regards to its kinetics and reaction conditions and products formed to understand and further develop the technology. Any improvement in the treatment processes requires an understanding of the fundamentals of the reactions specific to the waste being treated. It is concluded that suitable combination of reaction conditions along with reactor design needs to be formulated once the process kinetics for the treatment of mixed municipal solid waste during pyrolysis is estimated.