Reduction-melting extraction of trace elements from hazardous waste glass from an old glasswork\u2019s dump in the southeastern part of Sweden

Yahya Jani,William Hogland

doi:10.1007/s11356-017-0243-4

Yahya Jani, William Hogland

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-017-0243-4

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Abstract

At the southeastern part of Sweden, old art and crystal waste glass has been identified as a hazardous waste due to high weight concentrations of Pb (32.398%), Cd (0.085%), and As (1.976%). The reduction-melting technique was used to investigate the extraction of these trace elements from powder waste glass of particle size < 1 mm. Following a factorial design technique, the experimental results of the reduction-melting method showed that 99.9% of Pb, 100% of Cd, and 99% of As could be extracted. For a batch of 10 g powder waste glass, the found experimental and theoretical optimum operating conditions were 1100 °C of melting temperature, 5 g of Na2CO3, 2 g of carbon, and 120 min of melting time. The reduction-melting method displayed promising results which might help in recycling the extracted trace elements and glass compared to the current used solution of landfilling as hazardous wastes.

Highlights

In Sweden, more than 24,500 contaminated sites have been identified by the SEPA in 2016 (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) (SEPA 2016)
The results showed that the powder waste glass (PWG) was identified as hazardous waste due to the high concentrations of Pb, Cd, and As
CRT and crystal glasses are known as lead glasses because the chemical composition is dominated by Pb (BREF 2009)

Summary

Introduction

In Sweden, more than 24,500 contaminated sites have been identified by the SEPA in 2016 (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency) (SEPA 2016). There were 34 old glassworks sites located in the top of the list (Kalmar County Administrative Board 2016). These glassworks are located in Småland region in the southeastern part of Sweden between Kalmar and Kronoberg counties where the famous BKingdom of Crystal glass^ is located. At these glassworks, extensive amounts of trace elements were used to produce different colors and types of glasses but mostly crystal and art glass with high weight contents of Pb (more than 32%), As, Cd, Sb, Cu, Zn, and others (Hynes et al 2004). According to Kalmar and Kronoberg county estimations, the total amount of waste glass at 25 of these glassworks was more than 500,000 t and with high contents of Pb (3100 t), As (420 t), and Cd (30 t) (Höglund et al 2007), while the estimated total remediation cost of these 25 sites was more than 100 million € based on the old excavating and landfilling method (Höglund et al 2007)

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