Sulfur Polymer Solidification/Stabilization of elemental mercury waste

Abstract

Elemental mercury, contaminated with radionuclides, presents a waste disposal problem throughout the Department of Energy complex. In this paper we describe a new process to immobilize elemental mercury wastes, including those contaminated with radionuclides, in a form that is non-dispersible, will meet EPA leaching criteria, and has low mercury vapor pressure. In this stabilization and solidification process, elemental mercury is combined with an excess of powdered sulfur polymer cement (SPC) and sulfide additives in a mixing vessel and heated to ∼ 40 °C for several hours, until all of the mercury is converted into mercuric sulfide (HgS). Additional SPC is then added and the temperature of the mixture raised to 135 °C, resulting in a molten liquid which is poured into a mold where it cools and solidifies. The final treated waste was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction and found to be a mixture of the hexagonal and orthorhombic forms of mercuric sulfide. The Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure was used to assess mercury releases, which for the optimized process averaged 25.8 μg/l, with some samples being well below the new EPA Universal Treatment Standard of 25 μg/l. Longer term leach tests were also conducted, indicating that the leaching process was dominated by diffusion. Values for the effective diffusion coefficient averaged 7.6×10 −18 cm 2/s. Concentrations of mercury vapor from treated waste in equilibrium static headspace tests averaged 0.6 mg/m 3.