Numerical simulation on high-temperature gasification and melting furnace for solid waste

Currently, a number of waste treatment technologies have been developed. Among them, melting treatment has drawn more and more attentions due to merits such as low environmental pollution, high volume reduction and widespread treatment capacity for various waste materials. In this study, a two-dimensional mathematical model of high-temperature gasification and melting furnace was developed. This model considers motion; heat transfer and mass transfer of gas, solid and liquid phases in the furnace. Furthermore, this model did take into account the possible chemical reactions and phase transformations. The governing equations include inter-phase exchange of mass, momentum and heat, and consist of strongly coupled set of simultaneous partial differential equations. The model was applied to a gasification-melting furnace having packed bed for gasification and melting of wastes, and freeboard for secondary combustion of pyrolyzed gas. The computational results clearly showed regions of gasification, combustion and melting in the furnace as well as the flow field distributions of temperature, component concentration and other process variables.