Emission characteristics of toxic pollutants from an updraft fixed bed gasifier for disposing rural domestic solid waste

Gasification has gained advantage as an effective way to dispose domestic solid waste in mountainous rural of China. However, its toxic emissions such as PCDD/Fs and heavy metals, as well as their potential environmental risks, were not well studied in engineering application. In this study, an updraft fixed bed gasifier was investigated by field sampling analysis. Results showed that low toxic emissions (dust, SO2, NOx, HCl, CO, H2S, NH3, PCDD/Fs and heavy metals) in the flue gas were achieved when the rural solid waste was used as feedstock. The mass distribution of heavy metals showed that 94.00% of Pb, 80.45% of Cu, 78.00% of Cd, 77.31% of Cr, and 76.25% of As were remained in residual, whereas 86.58% of Hg was found in flue gas. The content of PCDD/Fs in the flue gas was 0.103 ngI-TEQ·Nm−3, and the total emission factor of PCDD/Fs from the gasifier was 50.04 μgI-TEQ·t-waste−1, among which only 0.04 μgI-TEQ·t-waste−1 was found in the flue gas. The total output of PCDD/Fs was1.89 times as high as input, indicting the updraft fixed bed gasifier increased emission of PCDD/Fs during the treatment domestic solid waste. In addition, the distribution characteristics of PCDD/Fs congeners reflected that PCDD/Fs was mainly generated in the gasification process rather than the stage of flue gas cleaning, suggesting the importance to effectively control the generation of PCDD/Fs within the gasifier chamber in order to obtain a low PCDD/Fs emission level.