ABSTRACT

The proper disposal of solid waste has been a major concern in many societies especially here in Nigeria. This work seeks to provide a solution to the disposal of wastes like paper and packaging material (carton) by revealing the usefulness of the waste through heat energy recovery (incineration). This work experimented to know the heat released by the wastes at average weight of 1kg and ratio 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 40:60, and 30:70 of paper and carton respectively. The experiment was carried out by burning the waste samples in the constructed prototype incinerator, using the thermocouple and temperature probes placed at four point (Ti, Tz, T3, T4) for collection of data. The results obtained are as follows; mean temperature of 348.5°C, 307.82°C, 302.28°C, 315.58°C and standard deviation (S.D) of 74.46, 65.67, 66.66, and 79.21 for carton only (1kg) at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 respectively. The mean temperature of 351.84°C, 320.82°C, 321.76°C, 336.6°C and S.D of 124.45, 102.67, 99.65, 114.16 for paper only (1kg) at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 respectively. The mean temperature of 381.92°C, 311.98°C, 364.7°C, 388°C and S.D of 111.87, 65.78, 85.18, 135.25 for paper and carton at 50:50 ratio at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 respectively. The mean temperature of 393.86°C, 307.18°C, 342.08°C, 341.2°C and S.D of 131.66, 84.58, 117.47, 100.16 for paper and carton at 60:40 ratio at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 respectively. The mean temperature of 385.54°C, 380.34°C, 341.3°C, 354.54°C and S.D of 124.88, 111.01, 105.06, 121.18 for paper and carton at 40:60 ratio at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 respectively. The mean temperature of 401.98°C, 263.02°C, 354.3°C, 385.34°C and S.D of 121.12, 66.17,110.76,141.10 for paper and carton at 70:30 ratio at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 respectively. The mean temperature of 394.9°C, 363.14°C, 291.44°C, 370.32°C and S.D of 115.49, 90.18, 67.98, 91.13 for paper and carton at 30:70 ratio at Ti, Tz, T3 and T4 vi respectively. The paper produced more heat energy than carton with High Heating Value (HHV) of 13848kj/kg and 12942kj/kg for paper and carton respectively. The work also evaluated the factors that affected their burning in the incinerator, factors such as; structural composition, proximate and ultimate analysis parameters on the solid waste samples. The results obtained are measured in percentage weight and are as follows: Paper with 0.66% lignin, 1.34% hemicellulose, 96.85% cellulose and Carton with 0.94% lignin, 1.38% hemicellulose, 96.18% cellulose for the structural composition. The moisture content of both samples were obtained on dry bases, paper has 5.16% ash content, 82.72% volatile matter, 10.86% fixed carbon and carton has 7.34% ash content, 83.97% volatile matter, 7.24% fixed carbon for the proximate analysis. The paper has 42.8% carbon, 6.70% hydrogen, 0.21% nitrogen, 0.07% sulphur, 49.04% oxygen and carton has 43.6% carbon, 6.60% hydrogen, 0.20% nitrogen, 0.04% sulphur, 48.84% oxygen for the ultimate analysis.