Abstract
ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to check the feasibility to treat medical waste incinerator (MWI) fly ash directly through microwave irradiation. The destruction efficiency of dioxins in MWI fly ash and in its froth products after flotation was compared in the air/nitrogen (N2) atmosphere. Results demonstrated that the dioxin destruction effect was better in a N2 atmosphere than that in an air atmosphere. And the total dioxin mass destruction efficiency of fly ash and the froths were 55.4% and 95.6% in the air atmosphere, while their values were 65.0% and 98.4% in the N2 atmosphere, respectively. The vaporisation ratio of dioxins in MWI fly ash was up to 10.2% after 9 min N2 irradiation. Furthermore, dechlorinating reactions of dioxins would occur when MWI fly ash was treated in N2 atmosphere. Therefore, microwave-absorbing additives should be used to improve the decomposition of dioxins because of MWI fly ash containing less carbon constituents than the froths.
Highlights
Incineration has become one of the major methods for treatment of medical wastes, due to its advantages in terms of volume reduction, energy recovery, pathogen elimination and chemical-toxicity destruction (Hsieh et al, 2018a)
To explore the function of PAC in medical waste incinerator (MWI) fly ash during microwave heating, experiments were conducted using froths obtained after flotation and raw fly ash
After treatment with a microwave incident power of 1800 W for 9 min in a N2 atmosphere, above 98% of the dioxins in the froths were decomposed but 65.0% were decomposed in the raw fly ash
Summary
Incineration has become one of the major methods for treatment of medical wastes, due to its advantages in terms of volume reduction, energy recovery, pathogen elimination and chemical-toxicity destruction (Hsieh et al, 2018a). Wu et al (2011) reported that fly ash constituent is a crucial factor, which can influence or dominate the destruction efficiency of dioxins in fly ash Another effective method is thermal treatment at temperature exceeding 450°C in oxidative conditions (Hung et al, 2013). If traditional heat treatment in air is used to treat the froths, resources will be wasted because large amounts of PAC in the froths are burnt instead of being reused
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