Design of an Efficient Incinerator for Independence Hall, University of Ibadan

Abstract

The menace constituted by improperly disposed solid waste has led to an increase in growing awareness towards solid waste disposal alternatives. The case of Independence Hall in University of Ibadan, Nigeria is not different as delay in the ultimate collection of the waste makes the storage site become an eye-sore and this justifies the need for an alternative waste disposal system. It is the objective of this work to design a low-cost and efficient household unit incinerator for the hall. A field survey which spanned over four weeks was conducted. Proximate and ultimate analysis of each waste component, their respective high heating values and the combustion rate of domestic waste were obtained from literature. These data were used in carrying out proximate and ultimate analysis of the waste. The survey reveal that Independence Hall waste consists essentially of eleven components which are polythene (42.28%), mixed paper (21.72%), rags (3.48%), leather (0.29%), Rubber (0.58%),glass/ceramics (0.87%), garbage (5.21%), metals (2.03%), wood (4.93%), Plastics (8.69%), ripe leaves (9.63%), and that the average daily waste generated, moisture content and loose waste density are 31.2kg, 22% and 68.9 kg/m3 respectively. From proximate analysis, moisture content, combustible component are ash 17.2%, 72.7% and 8.3% respectively. The LHV per kg of waste is 41303.91 KJ while the furnace temperature is 996.27oC. A low-cost incinerator which is environmentally friendly and capable of incinerating 4kg of waste per batch at minimal burn-down time was designed with a cyclone separator as the emission control device.

Keywords: Solid wastes, Disposal, cyclone, Incinerator, Emission,
University community.