PYROLYSIS OF SEWAGE SLUDGE FOR THE PRODUCTION OF LOW COST RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE

Dr Syed Amjad Ahmad; Dr Yasar Javaid; Imran Ali Channa; Ubaidullah Khan; Aijaz Ali Dahri

Authors

Dr Syed Amjad Ahmad
Dr Yasar Javaid
Imran Ali Channa
Ubaidullah Khan
Aijaz Ali Dahri

Abstract

Pyrolysis of municipal sewage sludge attracts the whole world researchers due to its ever increasing volume and low cost input for energy production as a renewable energy source. Due to the high pricing of fossil fuel and forecast for decreasing of its resources in the middle of this century compelled the researchers to search out its alternate of whom the cost is around the cost of fossil fuel or lower than it and is environmental friendly. Fossil fuel also produces greenhouse gases that affect the environment and create global warming therefore its alternatives are essentially desired. Now a day’s biomass, solar, wind nuclear, hydro, geothermal hydrogen & fuel cells, gravitational, geothermal, human-powered, ocean & wave / tidal energy etc. are the main sources for the development of low cast energy production at the cost of waning the production of CO₂. As the municipals sewage sludge is a main constituent of biomass and is the only one that is freely available where lives exist. Now a day’s its production is increasing day by day due to increase of urbanization and industrialization. Pyrolysis conditions, like heating rate and final pyrolysis temperature, were varied so that their influence on the characteristics of the resulting gases, liquids and solid residues could be studied. It was found that increasing the pyrolysis temperature decreases the solid fraction yield and increases the gas fraction yield while that of the liquid fraction remains almost constant. Therefore, the effect of the heating rate was found to be important at low final pyrolysis temperatures and the pyrolysis conditions. All the solid products obtained were of a basic nature and highly macro porous, the meso- and micro-pore volumes being relatively low. Pyrolysis gas contains N₂, O₂, H₂, CO, CH₄, CO_2, and a little amount of other hydrocarbons as some highly efficient fuel gases. GC, TCD and GC FID were used to find the percentage of these in pyrolysis gas. During this Pyrolysis process tar and char is also generated. Tar was also collected for analysis of different compounds present in it using impinger train as per EU protocol.