Proceedings of the Second International Energy 2030 Conference,
November 4-5, 2008, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E.

Hydrothermal Treatment of Municipal Solid Waste and Sewage Sludge to Produce Solid Fuel and Liquid Fertilizer

Kunio Yoshikawa
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan

Abstract
Until now, the commercial means of waste treatment are mass land-filling and mass burning. In Japan, most of combustible wastes are incinerated. Land-filling is still the most popular way of waste treatment all over the world. The worldwide goal is to prevent or limit land filling of wastes. Therefore, a third option for waste treatment has to be found, where waste-to-energy (WTE) technologies should be the main focus. Based on this background, Tokyo Institute of Technology is focusing on development and commercialization of small to medium scale WTE facilities for the utilization of mixed wastes, such as municipal solid waste (MSW), and high water content biomass, such as sewage sludge and animal manure as unutilized resources. In general, the economical feasibility of unutilized resources are not so good, but in the case of wastes, we can get revenue first by treating wastes and second by selling the product (electricity, steam, hot water, fuel, fertilizer, etc.). This Poster presentation introduces an innovative hydrothermal treatment technology, which can produce pulverized coal-like dry and uniform solid fuels from MSW and sewage sludge, as well as produce pathogen and heavy metal free organic liquid fertilizer from sewage sludge.