Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) Recycling Plant

A WANROOETECH RDF plant transforms mixed combustible waste — municipal solid waste, industrial scraps, textiles, plastics, and wood — into standardized solid fuel with a calorific value of 16–20 MJ/kg, comparable to low-grade coal.
Instead of landfilling or raw incineration, RDF processing extracts the energy value from non-recyclable waste. The result is a dense, uniform fuel that cement kilns, power plants, and district heating systems can burn with predictable efficiency and lower emissions than unprocessed refuse.

What is Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF)?

Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) is a fuel that is separated and converted from Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) or other solid wastes through a specific technological process. The process typically involves sorting, crushing, removal of non-combustible material, drying, addition of stabilizers or combustion aids, and ultimately compression molding to produce a solid fuel product of a certain shape, size, and density.

Use of RDF benefits the environment by greatly reducing the emission of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels. Without this energy recovery technology, non-recyclable refuse would simply end up in landfill or get incinerated, with a negative impact on the environment.

RDF Recycling Processing Plant Features
RDF (Garbage Derived Fuel) recycling and processing plants convert various solid wastes into high calorific value RDF fuel through a series of advanced processing technologies such as crushing, magnetic separation, sorting, and shaping. This process is both environmentally friendly and clean, significantly reducing harmful gas emissions and avoiding secondary pollution, achieving waste reduction and resource utilization. As an alternative energy source, RDF fuel can be widely used in fields such as power generation and heating, effectively reducing dependence on fossil fuels and lowering energy costs.

RDF Manufacturing Process (How is RDF produced?)
The RDF production process is various based on the composition of the infeed materials. The following are the major steps of an RDF recycling processing machine producing RDF alternative energy.

Sorting: This step mainly involves sorting various collected waste materials, including industrial scraps from shoe and clothing processing plants, paper mill scum, large piece waste, household waste, etc. The purpose of classification is to distinguish recyclable materials (such as paper, plastic, glass, and metal) from combustible organic waste (such as food residue, paper, wood) for subsequent processing.
Coarse shredding: Classified combustible organic waste will be sent to a shredder for initial crushing, converting large-sized waste into smaller particles for subsequent processing.
Magnetic separation: Use a magnetic separator to separate metal impurities from the crushed material, ensuring the purity of RDF fuel.
Air classifier: This step is usually used to further separate lightweight materials and other impurities through wind power, in order to further improve the purity of RDF.
Fine crushing: After preliminary sorting, the material will enter the fine crusher for further crushing, achieving a more uniform particle size for subsequent compression and combustion.
Forming: The finely crushed material is compressed and shaped by a molding machine to form RDF fuel blocks or particles with a certain shape and density for storage and transportation.

The RDF Processing Plant comes with dust filtration and air circulation as the RDF production generates excessive odour and dust.

Coarse Shredding (RDF Shredder)
RDF Shredding delivers by a twin shaft shredder or a pre-shredder. They share a similarity: extremely high torque and low speed. The goal of this step is split-opening waste in bags and destroying the exterior of the waste. Most of the waste is downsized and disintegrated to 100mm by 100mm (4 inches by 4 inches) at the end of this process.

If the infeed materials contain excessive bags or bales, prior to twin-shaft shredder, a pre-shredder is required for the early treatment in a RDF Processing Plant.

Magnetic Separation
Multiple 2500Gs+ magnetic separators operate throughout the system. Metals are typical by-products and shall be sorted out as early as possible. The absence of metal contaminants will prolong the overall machine service life.

2 overband metal separators are immediately used after coarse shredding (RDF Shredder).

Air Classifier (Air Blade)
Plastic, wood, paper, cardboard, foam and textile that contain high caloric value are usually light weighted. That is why RDF Production Plant needs air classifier to keep away heavy items like concretes and scrap metals, bringing up a high caloric value.

Fine Shredding

The goal is to achieve 50mm by 50mm (2 inches by 2 inches). From 100mm to 50mm, it is essential before briquetting and for final RDF quality. The particles are pre-shredded by a high-speed and wide-chamber single shaft shredder (RDF Crusher). Inside the shredder, a rotor up to 3 meters long maximizes the shredding area.

The hex screen combined with multiple rotor blades on the rotor ensures homogeneous particle sizes and stable capacity. The front doors are easy to access for the removal of tramp materials.

Refuse derive fuel shredder RDF single shaft shredder

In some cases where the infeed materials are homogeneous and not challenging, a PNDS series shredder with a hydraulic pusher is sufficient to produce RDF.

Briquetting

In RDF Processing Plant, the briquetting machine converts RDF into uniformly shaped briquettes that are easy to use, transport and store. Most importantly, the RDF cudes are densified and thus increase caloric value/volume.

Before and After

Once a RDF processing plant is finished, Wanrooetech tests it with municipal solid waste (MSW) and commercial and industrial (C&I) waste to show capability and output. As an RDF recycling equipment supplier, we’re dedicated to a zero waste to landfill approach, as well as using our state-of-the-art RDF Processing Machine to extract energy from processed waste.

RDF Production Plant：

RDF Production Before Briquetting	RDF Briquettes dia. 50mm
After Fine Shredding (by RDF Single Shaft Shredder)	RDF Briquettes dia. 60mm