Treatment of waste incinerator air-pollution-control residues with FeSO₄: Laboratory investigation of design parameters

The key design parameters of a new process for treatment of air-pollution-control (APC) residues (the Ferroxprocess) were investigated in the laboratory. The optimisation involved two different APC-residues from actual incinerator plants. The design parameters considered were: amount of iron oxide supplied, the liquid-to-solid ratio of the process, the separation of solids and wastewater, the sequence of material mixing, the possibilities of reuse of water, the feasibility of using secondary (brackish) water, and simple means to improve the wastewater quality. The investigation showed that an optimum process configuration could be obtained yielding a stabilised solid product with low leaching of heavy metals and a dischargable wastewater with high contents of salts (in order to remove salts from the solid product) and low concentrations of heavy metals. The amount of iron added to the APC-residues must be optimised for each residue. The overall water use can be limited to a L/S-ratio of 3 l kg–1 including water used for washing of the treated products.