Title: Pyrolysis of high-ash sewage sludge: thermo-kinetic study using TGA and artificial neural networks

Abstract: 

“Pyrolysis of high-ash sewage sludge (HASS) is a considered as an effective method and a promising way for energy production from solid waste of wastewater treatment facilities. The main purpose of this work is to build knowledge on pyrolysis mechanisms, kinetics, thermos-gravimetric analysis of high-ash (44.6%) sewage sludge using model-free methods & results validation with artificial neural network (ANN). TG-DTG curves at 5,10 and 20 °C/min showed the pyrolysis zone was divided into three zone. In kinetics, E values of models ranges are; Friedman (10.6–306.2 kJ/mol), FWO (45.6–231.7 kJ/mol), KAS (41.4–232.1 kJ/mol) and Popescu (44.1–241.1 kJ/mol) respectively. ΔH and ΔG values predicted by OFW, KAS and Popescu method are in good agreement and ranged from (41–236 kJ/mol) and 53–304 kJ/mol, respectively. Negative value of ΔS showed the non-spontaneity of the process. An artificial neural network (ANN) model of 2 * 5 * 1 architecture was employed to predict the thermal decomposition of high-ash sewage sludge, showed a good agreement between the experimental values and predicted values (R2 ⩾ 0.999) are much closer to 1. Overall, the study reflected the significance of ANN model that could be used as an effective fit model to the thermogravimetric experimental data.”

Biography:

Dr. Salman Raza Naqvi is currently working as Director, National Science & Technology Park &  as Tenured Associate Professor at School of Chemical & Materials Engineering, National University of Sciences & Technology Islamabad, Pakistan. He received his Ph.D. from Chemical Engineering Department University Technology PETRONAS, Malaysia. He completed Postdoctoral research from University of Twente, Netherlands on recovery of carbon fibre from composite waste in a circular economy.  His research domain encompasses biomass & bioenergy, biofuels production using thermos-chemical conversion processes and waste-to-energy projects, especially waste residues conversion to solid, liquid and gaseous fuels. In addition, he is also working in the area of alternative biofuels and resource recovery from waste biomass through gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. He worked at BASF SE Germany in process engineering department after completing MS Chemical Engineering from Technical University Dortmund, Germany. Dr. Naqvi has published more than 116 impact factor journal papers with citation around 2188 and H-index equal to 26.