Drying methods for municipal solid waste quality improvement in the developed and developing countries: A review

Abstract

Nowadays, drying methods for municipal solid waste quality improvement have been adopted in the developed and developing countries to valorize wastes for a renewable energy source, reduce dependency on fossil fuel and keep safer disposal at landfills. Among them, biodrying, biostabilization, thermal drying and solar drying are the most common. Drying of municipal solid waste could offer several environmental and economic benefits. Therefore, this review highlighted the drying methods for municipal solid waste quality improvement around the world and compared them based on the reduction of moisture, weight and volume of municipal solid wastes against drying temperature and time by using statistical analysis. It was observed that the drying temperature of different drying methods accounted for 115 +/- 40 degrees C for thermal drying, 59 +/- 37 degrees C for solar drying, 55 +/- 15 degrees C for biodrying and 58 +/- 11 degrees C for biostabilization. Among the drying methods, thermal drying provided the shortest drying time. The moisture reduction, weight reduction, volume reduction and heating value increase of municipal solid waste could vary with drying temperature and time. Finally, the benefits and drawbacks of different drying methods were specified, and recommendations were made for the future efficient drying.