Proceedings

In response to the growing need of economically viable sludge drying technologies and respective resource recovery, a convective high-velocity pilot cyclone was set-up at the Biofuel Technology Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå, Sweden. In essence this process entails feeding (≤900 kg/h) a material to a heated lowtemperature high-velocity inlet air flow (capacity ca. 13·103 m3/h) allowing moisture removal and respective shaping/separation of particles. Primarily this equipment is expected to provide improvements to the drying efficiency of challenging waste-water treatment sludge materials, whilst enabling simultaneous particle separation based on physical phenomena. Hence preliminary testing of a fibre reject stream from a local paper mill was performed, followed by a detailed optimisation of respective drying efficiency in early fall 2013. The process set-up will be presented followed by discussion of material characteristics and attained results.

Keywords: Bioenergy, drying, reject, resource recovery, separation, sludge, waste management