Sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants for energy purposes: thermodynamic approach

Abstract

The aim of the article is to show the effects of the main air plasma gasifier operating parameters, such as temperature and equivalence ratio on the gasification performance of sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants. The parametric study was performed using a one-dimensional mathematical model to determine the equilibrium composition of the system. The model is based on the principle of the minimum of the Gibbs function and uses only the ultimate and proximate analysis data as input to the model. The output of the model gives the equilibrium composition of the gasses produced. The parametric analysis was performed in order to determine the optimal operating parameters of the plasma reactor in order to obtain syngas with the highest heat value while achieving the maximum efficiency of the process. The collected results can be useful in further analysis of the gasification processes in plasma reactor, such as exergy analysis and kinetics.