Crushing of MSWI bottom ash towards material purification

Abstract

Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) reduces mass and volume of the waste by about 70% and 90%, respectively. Next to boiler and fly ash, solid MSWI Bottom Ash (hereinafter referred to as bottom ash; BA) makes up for 80% of the remaining material containing unburned matter, glass, ceramics, metals, and minerals. Despite its similar composition to concrete constituents, which suggests their applicability in this field, at present BA is landfilled or used in low-grade applications (e.g. road base material). In order to make a higher end application possible, correlations between physical properties, size fractions and mineralogical composition have been studied. This study looks into the crushing of the materials within BA and how certain fractions are enriched with specific types of material, therefore depleting and purifying other fractions making them better suitable for implementation in concrete