Thermochemical processing of solid waste at high temperature and high pressure to produce high-value products and energy

加拿大是世界上最大的城市固体废物（MSW）生产国之一，2008年人均处理777公斤MSW（加拿大统计局[2008]）。这些城市固体废物中只有25%被回收，大约3%在焚烧炉中转化为热能和电能。垃圾填埋场仍然是垃圾处理的主要方式，这是一个环境问题，因为渗滤液和垃圾填埋气体的排放，在最好的情况下只能捕获80%。非住宅废物的产生也是一个令人关切的问题，因为它占加拿大废物产生总量的三分之二。此外，考虑到世界城市固体废物的生产率预计将从2012年的13亿吨/年增长到2025年的22亿吨/年和2050年的42亿吨/年，废物管理是一个全球性问题（世界银行报告[2012]）。 在传统和易于加工的资源储备日益枯竭以及环境条例日益严格的情况下，加拿大人将大大受益于废物的更好利用和价值的提高。它将改善加拿大的环境绩效，为其工业提供新的收入来源，并使其工业更具竞争力。为了利用废物并使其增值，由于交叉污染和废物分离过程的局限性，回收在技术上和经济上并不总是可行的。废物变能源和废物变化学品的过程是废物利用和价格稳定的有希望的途径。目前，焚烧是最广泛使用的废物转化技术，但考虑到它只产生热量和电力，效率较低（13- 24%），并产生污染物排放（SOx，NOx，UHCs，VOC，二恶英，呋喃和PM），因此它对废物价值的潜力有限。热解和气化是提高WTE工艺效率并将废物转化为高价值化学品的有前途的技术。目前对废物气化和热解的研究大多在环境压力和400°C-1000°C范围内的温度下进行。在高压和高温（HP-HT）下操作这些工艺可以提供一些显著的优点：（1）由于取消下游设备，减少了固定资本成本（压缩机），（2）由于增加的反应速率而减小的反应器和管道尺寸，（3）增加的工艺效率等。然而，在高压和高温（HP-HT）下缺乏实验研究，并且它仍然是相对未开发的研究领域。 本提案旨在产生关于固体废物材料在高温（400°C-1600°C）和高压（1-30 atm）（HT-HP）下的热解、气化和燃烧实验的新知识。

Canadians are among the greatest producers of municipal solid waste (MSW) in the World with 777 kg of MSW per capita disposed in 2008 (Statistics Canada [2008]). Only 25% of these MSW are recycled and approximately 3% are converted to heat and electricity in incinerators. Landfills are still used as the primary means for waste disposal, which represents an environmental concern due to leachate and landfill gas emissions, which only 80% can be captured in best cases. Non-residential waste production is also a concern as it accounted for two-thirds of total waste production in Canada. Furthermore, waste management is a global concern considering that the World’s MSW production rate is expected to grow from 1.3 billion tons/year in 2012 to 2.2 billion tonnes/year in 2025 and to 4.2 billion tons/year in 2050 (World Bank report [2012]). In a context of depleting reserves of conventional and easily processable resources as well as increasing stringent environmental regulations, Canadians would greatly benefit from a better utilization and valorization of waste. It would improve Canada’s environmental performance, offer new revenue streams for its industries and make its industries more competitive. To utilize and valorize waste, recycling is not always technically and economically possible due to cross-contamination and limitations of waste separation processes. Waste-to-energy (WTE) and waste-to-chemicals processes are promising avenues for waste utilization and valorization. Currently, incineration is the most widely used WTE technology, but it has a limited potential for waste valorization considering that it only generates heat and electricity, it has a low efficiency (13-24 %) and it produces pollutant emissions (SOx, NOx, UHCs, VOCs, dioxins, furans and PM). Pyrolysis and gasification are promising technologies to increase WTE process efficiencies and convert waste into high-value chemicals. Current research on waste gasification and pyrolysis is mostly performed at ambient pressure and temperatures in the range of 400°C-1000°C. Operating these processes at high pressure and high temperature (HP-HT) may offer some significant advantages: (1) reduction of the fixed capital costs due to the elimination of downstream equipment (compressors), (2) reduced reactor and piping dimensions due to increased reaction rates, (3) increased process efficiency, etc. However, there is a lack of experimental research at high pressure and high temperature (HP-HT) and it remains a relatively unexplored area of research. The present proposal is intended to generate novel knowledge on the pyrolysis, gasification, and combustion experiments of solid waste materials at high temperatures (400°C-1600°C) and high pressures (1-30 atm) (HT-HP).