Experimental Study of Absorbent Hygiene Product Devolatilization in a Bubbling Fluidized Bed

This paper aims to investigate the usage of waste from Absorbent Hygienic Products (AHP) as a fuel for gasification or pyrolysis, two attractive routes obtain valuable products and dispose this kind waste. The study experimentally investigated devolatilization coarsely shredded materials diapers, in laboratory-scale bubbling fluidized bed made sand, representative preparatory step above-mentioned thermochemical conversions. Two versions were considered: as-manufactured diapers (AHPam, reference), cellulosic fraction sterilized used (AHPus). Results presented, obtained physical-chemical characterization AHPam AHPus (TGA, CHNS/O, proximate ultimate analyses, XRF, ICP-AES, SEM-EDS), well their devolatilizations at 500–600–700–800 °C under different atmospheres (air plus nitrogen, pure nitrogen reference). Generally, temperature influenced syngas composition most, with better performances nitrogen. At 700–800 highest quality yield obtained. For AHPus, respectively: (i) H2 equaled 29.5 vol% 23.7 vol%, while hydrocarbons 14.8 7.4 on dry, dilution-free basis; (ii) 53.7 Nl 46.0 produced, per 100 g fuel. Overall, AHP emerged an interesting