new regulations in the United Kingdom have forbidden sea dumping since December
1998, and in the near future new incinerators will be required to dispose of about . ve
million wet tonnes of sewage sludge per year. A research programme is being carried
out at the Shef. eld University Waste Incineration Centre (SUWIC) to design and operate a
novel high-ef. ciency rotating uidized bed (RFB) incinerator suitable for burning large
quantities of sewage sludge. Incineration experiments carried out in a 200 mm ID rotating
uidized bed have demonstrated that the novel RFB technology is well suited to the
incineration of sludge waste. Pre-dried chicken waste pellets, with similar characteristics to
sewage sludge, were used as a sewage sludge surrogate. Water was added to the dry sludge
pellets to generate the required moisture content. Results from this study showed that the
sludge thoughput for the RFB incinerator was signi. cantly higher than the conventiona l
uidized bed incinerator. It was found that the bed hydrodynamics were critical for the sludge
incineration process in the RFB and design of the distributor plate had a strong effect on the
quality of bed mixing, and hence on the sludge incinceration process.