This paper aims to investigate the
alternative solid fuel production
from paper sludge employing hydrothermal treatment (HTT) in a lab-scale
facility for implementation of the pilot-scale plant. The paper sludge
was subjected to the HTT under subcritical hydrothermal conditions.
In the lab-scale experiment, the temperature conditions were 180 °C,
200 °C, 220 °C, and 240 °C, respectively, while it
was 197 °C in the pilot plant as the optimum condition. The holding
time was 30 min in both cases. The hydrothermally produced solid fuel
was evaluated for the fuel property, the water removal performance,
and the mass distribution. Furthermore, the energy balance of the
process was studied. The higher heating value of the HT pretreated
paper sludge was slightly improved. In addition, the produced solid
fuel had comparable H/C and O/C atomic ratios with that of coal, indicating
the presence of carbonization during the HTT process. Using the mechanical
dewatering, only 4.1% of moisture in the raw paper sludge can be removed
while the solid fuel production from paper sludge by HTT at 200 °C
showed 19.5% moisture reduction. According to the energy balance of
the pilot plant, the recovered energy was significantly higher than
the energy input, showing the feasibility of employing the HTT to
produce alternative solid fuel from paper sludge.