Volatilization Mechanism of Pb from Fly Ash in Municipal Waste Incinerator

Abstract

Fly ash produced by waste combustion is designated as specially controlled waste in Japan due to harmful heavy metals contained in it and is legislated to be processed properly before disposal to landfill. As for technologies for making the fly ash harmless, several methods are recommended for the treatment, but each of them has some problems to be solved. The fly ash from a municipal solid waste incinerator contains large amounts of chlorinated compounds that make the harmful treatment difficult. A complete recycling of waste residue left behind after waste incineration, however, is required to solve the shortage of available final disposal sites. With this background, a new technology needs to be developed, that the heavy metals in the fly ash are removed sufficiently, no harmful heavy metals are leached and the residue ingredients are used effectively. In addition, Japanese government revised the Soil Contamination Countermeasures Law in February 2003 to strengthen the soil environmental evaluation standards. This could also promote the development of above technology. This paper focuses on lead that is particularly emphasized in the law, and proposes an advanced technology to remove lead from the fly ash, discussing the removal mechanism and removing conditions of lead. The newly developed technology is associated with the sintering process using a rotary kiln, and effectively uses only the chlorinated compounds contained in the fly ash to volatilize and remove the heavy metals. The technology achieves satisfactory low level of dioxins as well as prevention of lead leach. The fly ash treated by the technology also has passed a leaching test at pH 4 simulating typical acid rain circumstances.