INVESTIGATION ON COMBUSTION CHARACTERISTICS OF MUNICIPAL SOLID WASTE FROM PENANG STATE MALAYSIA

Landfill, a common technique used for solid waste disposal in Malaysia, currently cannot effectively manage it due to the increasing volume of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated daily in this country. Alternatively, incinera-tion of MSW should be implemented in view of the advantages in waste volume reduction, waste stabilization, waste to energy conversion and sanitization of waste. A case study for investigating the combustion characteristics of MSW from Penang State has been carried out in Pulau Burung Sanitary Landfill. The representative samples of MSW taken from this area were used in proximate and ultimate analysis as well as in higher heating value (HHV) determination. The findings of the proximate analysis showed that the investigated MSW comprised 44.66 % of moisture content, 44.55 % of volatile matter, 8.56 % of ash content and 2.23 % of fixed carbon content. The ultimate analysis of the MSW shows that the main content were 43.97 % for carbon, 39.40 % for oxygen and other composi-tions for hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur and ash were recorded as 6.83%, 0.91%, 0.34 % and 8.55%, respectively. The HHV of MSW obtained was 9.8532 MJ/kg, which is a typical value for developing countries. To further investigate the main sources that contributing toward HHV of MSW, the HHV obtained for the specific MSW was plotted against its physical composition (moisture, ash, volatile matter and fixed carbon) and chemical composition (C, H, O, N and S). There was a significant trend observed that volatile matter and carbon content showed a positive con-tribution to HHV of MSW whereas, moisture and oxygen content contributed negatively to the HHV.