In connection to present energy demand and waste management crisis in Pakistan, refuse-derived fuel (RDF) is gaining importance as a potential co-fuel for existing coal fired power plants. This research focuses on the co-combustion of low-quality local coal with RDF as a mean to reduce environmental issues in terms of waste management strategy. The combustion characteristics and kinetics of coal, RDF, and their blends were experimentally investigated in a micro-thermal gravimetric analyzer at four heating rates of 10, 20, 30, and 40 °C/min to ramp the temperature from 25 °C to 1000 °C. The mass percentages of RDF in the coal blends were 10%, 20%, 30%, and 40%, respectively. The results show that as the RDF in blends increases, the reactivity of the blends increases, resulting in lower ignition temperatures and a shift in peak and burnout temperatures to a lower temperature zone. This indicates that there was certain interaction during the combustion process of coal and RDF. The activation energies of the samples were calculated using kinetic analysis based on Kissinger–Akahira–Sunnose (KAS) and Flynn–Wall–Ozawa (FWO), isoconversional methods. Both of the methods have produced closer results with average activation energy between 95–121 kJ/mol. With a 30% refuse-derived fuel proportion, the average activation energy of blends hit a minimum value of 95 kJ/mol by KAS method and 103 kJ/mol by FWO method.

Ascorbic acid was used as leaching agent to investigate the dissolution kinetics of natural magnesite ore. The effects of various reaction parameters such as acid concentration, liquid-solid ratio, particle size, stirring speed, and temperature were determined on dissolution kinetics of the magnesite ore. It was found that the dissolution rate increased with increase in acid concentration, liquid-solid ratio, stirring speed, and temperature and decrease in the particle size of the ore. The graphical and statistical methods were applied to analyze the kinetic data, and it was evaluated that the leaching process was controlled by the chemical reaction, that is, . The activation energy of the leaching process was found to be 57.244 kJ mol⁻¹ over the reaction temperature range from 313 to 343 K.