EXPERIMENT 3: DETERMINATION OF VOLATILE MATTER CONTENT (%)

ABSTRACT

High moisture municipal solid waste leads to lower heat value, lower combustion efficiency and
frequent and serious erosion during incinerating. Municipal solid waste should be dried before being
efficiently incinerated. The purpose of this study to carry out experimental study and simulation on the
characteristics volatile matter content of solid waste. The dried samples from experiment 2 was weight
and used to determine volatile matter content. The volatile matter content (%) was determined after
the sample was combusted in muffle furnace at 900 ± 5˚C for 7 minutes or until constant weight is
obtained. The biscuits served as the sample in this experiment. The biscuit contain many ingredients. So,
it will effected to the volatile matter content (%).The weight of the biscuits before place in muffle
furnace was 42.55g and the result biscuit after cool from muffle furnace was 28.31g. Based on the data,
it shows the biscuit contain the %volatile matter. The volatile matter was calculated by using this
formula:

% volatile matter = [( dry sample weight – ash weight)/ dry sample weight] x 100%

INTRODUCTION

Volatile matter is any substance that has a tendency to vaporize given the right conditions. A
substance’s volatility is measured by its vapor pressure, the point at which a substances turns from a
solid to gas, or vice versa. Unlike temperature –based measurements, like boiling point, vapor pressure
is not directly related to heat or cold and instead relies on the pressure placed on a substances. While
both vapor pressure and volatile matter are common in many physic and chemistry, one of its main
industrial uses is in determining the properties of coal.

Ash content represents the total mineral contents in foods. Although mineral represent a small portion
of dry matter, often less than 7 % of the total, they play an important role from a physicochemical,
technological and nutritional point of view. Determining the ash content may be important for several
reasons. It is part of proximate analysis for nutritional evaluation. Ashing is the first step in preparing a
food sample for determination of specific elemental analysis.

When powdered food, are heated to a temperature of about 500˚C for at least four hours, the water
and other volatile constituents are evolved as vapors and the organic constituents are burnt off in the
presence of oxygen of the air, to carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen and also eliminated together
with hydrogen as water. The ash content of most fresh foods rarely is greater than 5%. Pure oils and fats
generally contain little or no ash, products such as cured bacon may contain 6% ash and dried beef may
be as high as 11.6%based on weight basis. Ash content is a widely accepted index.

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the volatile matter content of solid waste

REFERENCES

Moh’d Abu-Qudais, Hani A Abu –Qdais (2000) Energy content of municipal solid waste. Journal of
science and publications, 41 (9).