Integrated thermal behavior and compounds transition mechanism of municipal solid waste incineration fly ash during thermal treatment process

Thermal behavior of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) fly ash is extremely complicated due to the simultaneously occurred reactive processes and the products with different chemical compositions, therefore, the investigation of chemical compounds transition behavior and mechanism during the integrated thermal process is of great significance. In this study, the macro-thermal treatment of fly ash and thermo-gravimetric analysis via non-isothermal methods were carried out and Málek method was firstly introduced to explore the mechanism of multi-step reaction for fly ash. The mineral transition results suggested that the halite, sylvite in the raw fly ash transformed to more complex crystals in treated samples, such as chlorellestadite, polyhalite and enstatite during the thermal process. And the heavy metals leaching concentration decreased with the temperature increased from 300 °C to 1200 °C, and the leaching values were lower than the standard limitation after thermal treatment. In addition, three major steps of fly ash reactions (300–380 °C, 650–750 °C and 890–1130 °C) during the thermal process were observed and expressed by first order reaction for the first step, three-dimensional diffusion for the second step and three dimensions of limiting surface reaction between both phases for the third step, respectively. The kinetic study revealed that the mineral transition process was in well accordance with the simulated reaction mechanism during the thermal treatment. The obtained results are expected to provide the research basis for studying detailed thermal characteristics and reaction mechanism during the thermal treatment of MSWI fly ash. [Display omitted] •The integrated thermal behavior of MSWI fly ash thermal treatment was investigated.•Reaction mechanism determined by Málek method was identified as F1, D3, and R3.•The results provided integrated thermal behavior and reaction mechanism of fly ash.