Investigation of sludge waste incineration in a novel rotating fluidized bed incinerator

New regulations in the United Kingdom have forbidden sea dumping since December 1998, and in the near future new Incinerators will be required to dispose of about five million wet tonnes of sewage sludge per year. A research programme is being carried out at the Sheffield University Waste Incineration Centre (SUWIC) to design and operate a novel high-efficiency relating fluidized bed (RFB) incinerator suitable for burning large quantities of sewage sludge. Incineration experiments carried out in a 200 mm ID rotating fluidized bed have demonstrated that the novel RFB technology is well suited to the incineration of sludge waste. Pre-dried chicken waste pellets, with similar characteristics to sewage sludge, were used as a sewage sludge surrogate. Water was added to the dry sludge pellets to generate the required moisture content. Results from this study showed that the sludge thoughput far the RFB incinerator was significantly higher than the conventional fluidized bed incinerator. It was found that the bed hydrodynamics were critical for the sludge incineration process in the REB and design of the distributor plate had a strong effect on the quality of bed mixing, and hence on the sludge incinceration process.