Modeling the process for incineration of municipal waste

The current technologies help companies economically utilize available materials, as the world reserves of raw materials are growing smaller. At the same time, the worldwide trend is characterized by increasingly rapid growth of consumption. The consumption leaves in its trail a massive amount of solid, liquid and gaseous waste. With the growing shortage of raw materials on the one hand and an increasing threat to the environment on the other hand, an increasing need for more sophisticated and efficient use of wastes, as a future source of energy and raw materials, is observed. To dispose the municipal waste, it can be incinerated. The waste incineration process can be simulated to achieve a better emission control. Every year, about 83 Gg of municipal waste were imported into the Koksov-Baksa company (Fig. I). The waste underwent several degrees of separation. The first separation step was intended to separate plastics, electrical components and wood from imported waste. The plastic and electrical components constitute 18.73%, wood in various forms 10.00% and other household waste 71.27% of the total volume of imported waste. The second separation step took place in a waste incineration, just after the burning. The incineration resulted in separation of ash 3.37%, flue gases 6.63%. The gases passed through the filtration and the total volume of flue gases consisted of water vapor 65% and of other emissions 35%. The third separation step is focused on remaining amounts of metals in the resulting burned residues. The burned residues contained metals (2.34%) and of pure slag (97.66%)(1, 2)).