confirms that ignition depends on how much energy quickly released by volatile matter but not necessarily on early
release of the volatile matter.
When comparing the various level of MSW blends, referring Fig.5, blends up to 20% show very similar mass
loss profiles to their parent coal in all respects. But beyond 30% of MSW blends exhibit a large change in the profile
due to high amount of volatile release in the early stage, which differentiates much from their original combustion
behavior. Hence presently available equipment can be best utilized without major change up to 20% MSW blending.
This result promotes the feasibility of co-combustion of MSW with coal in the present infrastructure in a short
duration.
VI. Energy Balance Analysis
In order to clarify the economical feasibility of this hydrothermal technology, an energy balance analysis was
conducted for the system shown in Fig.8. The results are summarized in Table 9. Table 9 shows that only 1/4 of
energy content in the product will be required to supply thermal energy to the boiler. This means that if we produce
high temperature saturated steam by burning the product, only 1/4 of the product will be utilized within the system,
and the rest 3/4 can be supplied to outside of this system as solid fuels for co-firing with coal.