ABSTRACT
Mechanical and biological treatments of urban solid waste allow separating a fraction also known as refuse-derived fuel (RDF). This fraction is often deposited in landfills due to poor fuel properties, but it is essential to find more sustainable ways for its management and valorization. This work aimed to study traditional carbonization (TC), at 250 °C to 350 °C, as a technique for transforming RDF into biochars suitable for energy recovery. TC allowed to obtain biochars with HHV from 16.4 MJ/kg to 18.4 MJ/kg, and mass yields from 46.3% to 60.4%. The TC process reduced moisture, volatile matter and oxygen contents, increasing the levels of carbon, fixed carbon and hydrogen. However, the produced chars must be washed to reduce undesirable characteristics in a solid fuel, such as high ash content (up to 36.8%) and chlorine concentration up to 1.9%.
