Environmental emissions assessment of coal and refuse derived fuel incineration processes by simulation

Abstract

Coal has been the predominant source of energy for electricity production in South Africa. Coal combustion process for energy recovery is regarded as heavy pollutant emissions process. Waste derived alternative fuels are widely used for substituting the thermal energy requirement from fossil fuels and reducing the pollutant emission. This paper is a comparison between the burning of coal and RDF as far as fuel qualities and emissions. The ignition of fuel derived from MSW is a promising low-cost retrofitting procedure for coal power plants, having the additional advantage of lessening the volume of waste transfer in landfills. Moreover, co-burning of RDF and coal, as opposed to changing to RDF ignition alone straight from the onset of devoted power plants, permits plant administrators to be adaptable to varieties in the RDF supply.