Abstract
Thermal treatment applications towards production of energy from raw and pre-treated municipal solid waste (MSW) are continuously growing context in contemporary waste-to-energy technology. The quality of MSW needs an improved analysis to enhance her choice of energy exploitation and environmental assessment of fly and bottom ashes associated with thermochemical conversions. The MSW were collected from municipal solid waste disposal facilities (MSWDF) in Cape Town to investigate heavy metals distributions in MSW. The MSW were pre-treated to improve the quality of MSW. The 7700 Series quadrupole ICP-MS solution method was used to determine concentrations and distributions of some heavy metals from MSWDF in Cape Town. This study further predicted distributions of heavy metals in fly and bottom ashes by a model. The results showed that accumulation of high concentrations of heavy metals in bottom ash residue could be a good remedy for heavy metals control. The heavy metals (especially Pb, Zn and Hg) emissions could be technically monitored and controlled from escaping to urban air-sheds atmosphere and prevent from their consequential secondary environmental and health implication.
Highlights
The contemporary solid waste management systems include waste collections and segregating followed by one or more of the following options: recovery of secondary materials by recycling of solid wastes, biological treatment of organic waste, production of marketable composts, and thermal treatments by various forms thermochemical conversions to recover energy in the form of heat and electricity and landfilling [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
This was necessary to prepare for mitigation procedures to corrosion and emissions that maybe exposed to environment after disposal residues containing heavy metals within the thermochemical conversion process, its residues and disposals
The results indicated that the average values of all the heavy metals from all the pre-treated municipal solid wastes (MSW) were within the standard limits [45]
Summary
The contemporary solid waste management systems include waste collections and segregating followed by one or more of the following options: recovery of secondary materials by recycling of solid wastes, biological treatment of organic waste, production of marketable composts, and thermal treatments by various forms thermochemical conversions to recover energy in the form of heat and electricity and landfilling [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. The application of the solid waste management systems in developing and under-developed countries are not fully employed to tackle the challenges of municipal solid wastes (MSW).The rate of production of MSW in developing countries demands paramount attention to tackle ever growing challenge of untreated amount of MSW in most developing and under-developed nations [9,10,11]. This is because the impacts are becoming serious in terms of lingering environmental challenges on (air, land, surface and subsurface water flow) as well as short and long-time health implications [1, 10, 12,13,14]. Okonkwo and Mothiba [20] found a high concentration of lead in the Madanzhe and Mvudi Rivers in Thohoyandou, South Africa, which was attributed to the effluent from a nearby sewage treatment plant and a waste dumping site
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