Correlation mechanism between structure and gasification characteristics of typical municipal solid waste (MSW) disposable bamboo chopsticks hydrochar

Due to the complex composition, large fluctuation of material characteristics and low energy density of MSW, the gasification characteristics of its hydrochars are not well understood. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the gasification characteristics of single component hydrochars. In this paper, a typical component of MSW, disposable bamboo chopsticks (DBC), was used as raw material to study the effect of hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) conditions on the structural properties and gasification reaction characteristics of DBC hydrochars. The results showed that HTC improved the energy quality of DBC, the HHV of DBC-230-60 sample was 1.62 times of that of DBC, and H/C and O/C decreased from 1.57 and 0.76 of original sample to 1.00 and 0.33 of DBC-230-60. The results of characterization also demonstrate that the aromatization degree of hydrochar and hydrochar semicoke is higher than that of the DBC original one. The specific surface area of hydrochar is lower than that of DBC original sample, but hydrochar semicoke is higher than that of DBC original sample semicoke. Compared with hydrothermal time, hydrothermal temperature has the more significant effect on the structure and gasification reactivity of hydrochar. Higher hydrothermal temperature increases the aromatization degree of hydrochar and decreases the gasification reactivity of hydrochar. The gasification reactivity of hydrochar is worse than that of DBC original sample, which is mainly because the increase of the degree of semicoke arbulization of hydrochar has a greater negative effect on the gasification reactivity than the abundance of pore structure.