Autoclaving treatment of wasted disposable bamboo chopsticks

The autoclaving combined with mechanical separation, known as the mechanical heat treatment, is one of the promising alternatives to treat the mixed wastes consisting of organics and inorganics. After autoclaving, the organics can then be sorted, separated and recovered for the re-utilization. In this study, the steam autoclaving of bamboo chopstick (BC), which is one of the major biomasses in the municipal solid waste, was performed. The effects of steam autoclaving temperature (T) and autoclaving reaction time (t) on the characteristics of BC were examined. The thermal gravimetric and differential thermo-gravimetric analyses were conducted to assess the pyrolysis behavior of autoclaved BC which can be further treated to produce up-graded refuse derived fuel or bio-char. The results indicated that the autoclaving extent of BC (=(initial mass-mass at t)/initial mass, in dry basis) increases with increasing T and t. The high heating value per mass in dry basis (H_HMD) of raw BC after autoclaving increases from 4365kcal/kg to about 4975kcal/kg at T=428K with t=60min (A428-60) and to 5044-5158kcal/kg at 453K with 30 (A453-30) and 60min (A453-60), enhancing the energy densification ratio (ratio of H_HMD after to that before autoclaving) to 1.06-1.17. However, on the wet basis, the water content of autoclaved product for the case of A428-60 is 35.85wt.% being less than those of A453-30 and A453-60 of 45.33-55.20wt.%. The comparison indicated that the conditions at 428K with 60min are more appropriate than the others, giving satisfactory H_HMD with less water content. The pyrolysis behaviors of autoclaved BCs employing T=428-453K and t=15-60min are closed to that of raw BC, thus retaining the pyrolytic quality of BC. The information obtained in the present study is useful for the rational design and proper operation of autoclaving system for treating the wasted BC.