Evaluation of Heat Transfer Coefficient During Drying of Typical Municipal Solid Waste Matrices with Significant Shrinkage at Medium Temperature

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 work is to carry out experimental study and simulation on characteristics of moisture migration of municipal solid waste matrices at medium temperature (100°C–200°C) in a muffle furnace. Obvious shrinkage during moisture migration of biological waste matrices with high initial moisture content was observed. The results showed the initial moisture content and framework mobility of waste matrices and the rate of moisture migration influence on shrinkage; and linear relationships between shrinkage and moisture content ratio of waste matrices during the first falling-rate period at certain drying temperature were established. Certain experimental results of drying characteristics of moisture migration of biological waste matrices, such as potato slices and watermelon peels, under medium temperature were simulated using the shrinkage model with introducing a shrinkage term in the governing equations. The model was numerically solved by applying the finite-differences method. The results show good agreement with experiment data. The shrinkage of biological waste matrices can enhance surface heat transfer of matrices. Thus, shrinkage plays an important role in the drying behavior of high-moisture biological municipal solid waste matrices.