Experimental study on the melting characteristics of pellet fuel for a waste plastic firing boiler

열가소성 폐플라스틱 연소 보일러용 펠렛 연료의 용융특성 실험

Experiments were performed to investigate the melting characteristics of pellet fuel made of LDPE and PP for a waste plastic firing boiler. Pellet fuel in a burner goes through conduction, convection and radiation transferred from flame in a furnace, and complex thermo/chemical processes. To figure out effects of ambient temperature and size of pellet on melting time pellets with a diameter from 5 mm to 40 mm were made to contact high temperature flue gas generated by a LNG firing pilot burner. Though melting processes of plastics include complicated heat transfer in a burner, parameters are limited to flue gas temperature and size for the simplicity in this study. From the results, melting times of LDPE and PP with a diameter of 5mm are 63 and 62 secs respectively at 600 $^{\circ}C$ while 677 and 583 sees respectively for a diameter of 40 mm. At $900^{\circ}C$, melting times of LDPE and PP with a diameter of 5mm are 21 and 24 sees respectively while 408 and 337 secs respectively for a diameter of 40 mm. It is found that melting time of LDPE is longer than that of PP, and melting times of both in general increase with diameter of pellets. It is thought melting is dependent mostly on melting temperature of plastic. It is expected melting times obtained from the study might be taken into account in designing a pellet firing burner for a boiler