Simulation of a waste incineration process with flue-gas cleaning
and heat recovery sections using Aspen Plus
Silvano Cimini
*
, Marina Prisciandaro, Diego Barba
Dipartimento di Chimica, Ingegneria Chimica e Materiali, Universita
`
dellÕAquila, Monteluco di Roio, 67040 LÕAquila, Italy
Accepted 17 December 2004
Abstract
In the present paper, the modeling of a dual-purpose plant for the production of electrical and thermal energy from the heat
treatment of solid wastes is presented. Particularly, the process has been modeled by using the Aspen Plus Shell, with the aim of
performing a study about the applicability of this software in the simulation of a solid waste incineration process, which involves
complex gas–solid reactions where the solids are referred to as ‘‘non-conventional’’. The model is developed to analyze and quantify
the expected benefits associated with refuse derived fuel (RDF) thermal utilization; thus attention is focused on the performance of
the energy recovery section.
Ó 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
1. Introduction
During chemical process design, a chemical engineer
often has to use complex models for the physical–chem-
ical property calculation of stream components and for
the process unit operation design or rating. Today, the
use of specific simulation software, such as Aspen Plus,
ChemCAD, Hysys, etc., offers a powerful tool for the
analysis of existing processes, synthesis of new pro-
cesses, implementation of a control strategy and fast
screening of process alternatives to select the best solu-
tion (economic aspects, environmental aspects, energy
consumption and flexibility of the proposed process).
The current model has been implemented by using As-
pen Plus release 10.2.
Essentially, the Aspen Plus simulator is made up of:
– a rich databank with pure components, binary
parameters, reactions constants, etc. (Khoshnoodi
and Lim, 1997);
– a vast number of thermodynamic models for the
physical and transport properties calculation;
– a unit operation model (U.O.M.).
In particular, in the design/rating of a refuse derived
fuel (RDF) incineration process a simulator is useful for
the following reasons:
– to solve the mass and energy balance around the
flowsheet by iterative methods (recycle streams or
‘‘tear’’ streams);
– to perform sensitivity analysis to choose the best
cogeneration cycle thermodynamic parameters;
– to evaluate the system behavior at different load con-
ditions (RDF flowrates);
– to evaluate the system behavior at different feed com-
positions (RDF low heat value, LHV);
– to verify the cleaning process of hot gas, in particular
the content reduction of ash and acid gases.
In this paper, the modeling of a dual-purpose power
plant for the production of electrical and thermal energy
from the heat treatment of solid wastes is presented. The
model has been developed with the aim of performing a
0956-053X/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2004.12.005
*
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: cimini@ing.univaq.it (S. Cimini), maripri@ing.
univaq.it (M. Prisciandaro), barba@ing.univaq.it (D. Barba).
www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman
Waste Management 25 (2005) 171–175