Development of solid recovery fuel for power generation with bacterial bio-drying of municipal solid waste in Lombok Island West Nusa Tenggara

Abstract The growth of waste in big cities in Indonesia increases sharply every year. The Government’s ability to manage solid waste only reaches 40.09% in urban areas and 1.02% in rural areas, so the right policies are needed so that Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) does not save potential problems that will impact the future. The waste problem is no longer just a matter of cleanliness and the environment but has become a social problem that has the potential to cause conflict. The most likely solution to solving the MSW problem is to use it as a source of alternative fuel, which can be done by a mechanical-biological treatment technology into Solid Recovery Fuel (SRF). The proposed SRF processing method is straightforward and requires a little technology; thus, it could be developed at the community level. The MSW is collected and processed by communities and then sold to power plants or factories or used in communities to replace solid fuels such as wood or charcoal. Compared with the standard RDF and SRF specifications, MSW SRF falls under medium-grade Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) or SRF specifications. Further comparison with coal, water hyacinth SRF, and sorghum shows that MSW SRF has several advantages, such as low fixed carbon, sulfur, and moisture, that could be beneficial for combustion performance, which concludes that MSW has potential and meet the specification as an alternative fuel for thermal power plant or other industry that utilizes thermal energy. This paper proposes a processing methodology for municipal solid waste into alternative energy. The method could guide local people in using biomass resources to improve local economic prosperity.