Jun KS  Hwang EJ  Kim HJ

Vol. 15,  No. 3, pp. 154-164, Sep.  2009

Sludge Drying Carbonization Energy Petrochemical sludge

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In 2007, 94% of organic wastewater sludge from industries located in Ulsan was disposed of by ocean dump. The ocean dump of organic sludge would be totally prohibited by the year of 2012. However, there is no alternative but incinerating the sludge from the industries located in Ulsan. Securing the technology for sludge treatment and on-land disposal is very important issue among the industries in the Ulsan Petrochemical Industry Complex. In this study, the material aspects of dried and carbonized sludge as a fuel were evaluated for petrochemical and sewage sludge from Ulsan. The dried and carbonized sludges from the factories producing terephthalic acid, BTX, propylene, chemical textile, etc. of which the low heat value exceeded 3,000 kcal/kg had high potential as a fuel according to the results of thermal characteristic analysis. However, the dried sludges with heat values lower than 2,100 kcal/kg and carbonized sludges, lower than 1,100 kcal/kg containing more inorganic material from the industries producing pulp, paper, methylamine, amide, etc. had a little potential to be used as a fuel. In most cases, drying the sludge showed better results than carbonization in the aspect of thermal characteristics of sludge.