A lab-scale microwave system for experiments of high temperature waste pyrolysis

The reactor designed and assembled at Università degli Studi di Palermo - presented here - was conceived to explore high unit power input, high temperature reductive processes. Its main field of use therefore is likely to be the destruction of liquid waste fed as an aerosol; or of VOCs; or of granular waste making a fluidized bed. If required, a 3 - phase system including a solid catalyst could also be set up. These waste should be free of low - melting or boiling metals. Incidentally, a literature review shows that the compounds taken as benchmark in thermal VOC destruction are trichloroethylene, benzene and toluene. At lower unit power rates this MW - based system lends itself also to recovering useful fractions from complex waste like WEEE (Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment), through pyrolysis and gasification.