Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fuel journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel Full Length Article Pyrolysis of typical MSW components by Py-GC/MS and TG-FTIR Wenchao Ma a , Gulzeb Rajput a , Minhui Pan a , Fawei Lin a, ⁎ , Lei Zhong a , Guanyi Chen a,b, ⁎ a School of Environmental Science and Engineering/Tianjin Key Lab of Biomass/Wastes Utilization, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China b School of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa 850012, China ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Municipal solid waste Pyrolysis Py-GC/MS TG-FTIR Kinetic analysis ABSTRACT Typical fve MSW components (paperboard, PVC, sawdust, cotton fabric, and vegetables) were examined by using Py-GC/MS and TG-FTIR. Py-GC/MS experimental results showed diferent products at 500 °C with varying percentage including benzene derivatives, phenolic compounds, acids, alcohols, aldehydes and ketones, alkanes, and other compounds and revealed that the pyrolyzed organic content in diferent components varied by the temperature gradient. During rapid pyrolysis of PVC at 600–800 °C, the yield of major plasticized pyrolysis products including benzene and toluene was signifcantly increased from 21.76 wt% to 39.45 wt% and 15.03 wt % to 22.33 wt%, respectively. The thermogravimetric analysis also revealed the degradation and signifcant conversion of components at higher temperatures. Furthermore, to have a better understanding, mixed waste pyrolysis results were also compared with the calculated mixed waste results. The results disclosed the strong interactions between the PVC pipe and vegetables. In addition, the binary mixture of PVC with other components also promoted low-temperature pyrolysis. Besides, paperboard also showed strong interaction with sawdust and cotton clothes. TG-FTIR results disclosed that when the chemical composition and constituents of waste com- ponents are similar, the composition becomes the main infuencing factor for mixed pyrolysis. In addition, a kinetic approach was also employed to determine the activation energy of MSW components during pyrolysis and the activation energy of the pyrolysis of vegetables was found to be in lower range with 82.85 E/(kJ·mol −1 ) in comparison with other components. 1. Introduction In China, rapid economic development has increased the annual output of municipal solid waste (MSW) in recent years. This rapid in- crement, with the passage of time, has attained a lot of attention which urgently needs to be addressed [1]. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the amount of MSW in 2015 was reached up to 2.0×10 8 t/yr. The treatment of MSW has been a challenge so far. Until now, the landflling has been the dominant approach for MSW treat- ment in China. At present, most of the cities in China are surrounded by garbage and many landflls are near the end of their design life [2]. To reconcile the environmental protection and economic development, an efcient method for MSW treatment is required [3]. In this regard, thermal treatment technologies for MSW treatment can play an im- portant role due to the combined advantages of weight/volume re- duction and energy recovery along with efcient toxic pollutant re- moval techniques. Pyrolysis is the promising technique and basis of most of the ther- mochemical processes. It is a process of thermal degradation of waste in an inert atmosphere resulting in valuable products including char, oil/ wax and combustible gases [4]. However, the promising pyrolysis technique for waste treatment varies with MSW components and composition. So, the pyrolysis characteristics of MSW are very sig- nifcant for both the design and the operation of MSW thermal treat- ment facilities [5]. As the MSW is a complexed and complicated mixture with varying composition, researchers focused on the specifc fractions of MSW to attain signifcant pyrolysis conditions. For example, Zheng et al. studied about the pyrolysis characteristics of organic MSW fractions including food residue, wood chips, wastepaper, fabric, PE, rubber, and their mixtures in a particularly designed thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) apparatus with a heating rate up to 864.8 °C min −1 , while the tem- perature infuence on each fraction was also studied and the fnal temperature was marked as a factor in reaction speed and intensity [6]. Wu et al. studied the pyrolysis behaviors of plastics (PVC, PE, PS) and their blends by thermal gravimetric/fourier transform infrared (TG/ FTIR) and analyzed the volatile products to study the interaction of plastic blends during thermal decomposition [7]. Luo et al. pyrolyzed https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.04.069 Received 15 January 2019; Received in revised form 26 March 2019; Accepted 11 April 2019 ⁎ Corresponding authors at: School of Environmental Science and Engineering/Tianjin Key Lab of Biomass/Wastes Utilization, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China (G. Chen). E-mail addresses: linfawei@tju.edu.cn (F. Lin), Chen@tju.edu.cn (G. Chen). Fuel 251 (2019) 693–708 Available online 18 April 2019 0016-2361/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T