Temperature-Dependent Kinetics of Toxic Metals in Waste Incinerators

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The goal of this program is determination of chemical kinetic data for reactions of metals involved in toxic emissions associated with incineration of waste materials. Reactions of nickel, lead, cadmium, chromium, and antimony, with HCl, O2, CO2, and Cl2 as oxidants, will be studied; atomic metals as well as metal oxides and halides will be included in this investigation. A uniyue set of facilities (high-temperature fast-flow and pseudo-static metals high-temperature photochemistry reactors) will be used to provide rate coefficient and mechanistic data on individual isolated reactions over a 300-1800K temperature range at pressures from 0.01 to 1.0 atmospheres. Laser-induced fluorescence and other optical and mass spectroscopic techniques will be employed for rate coefficient and product identification measurements. Information obtained from the experiments will be used to aid in estimation of kinetics for reactions of metal species other than those addressed in the experiments. This work is a logical continuation/extension of current studies being conducted by the PI under NSF and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) funding. The presence of many metallic species in municipal, hazardous, and biomedical waste incinerators can lead to emissions of toxic gaseous molecules and fly ash, as well as production of toxic components in bottom ash and slag. The combustion process influences the distribution of the metals among these various "products" and their particle size and oxidation state, as well as the ease of leaching of the residual solids. This work is also relevant to combustion processes used to decontaminate soils, since these can lead to similar gaseous and particle emissions, and to emissions from high-temperature industrial devices such as glass smelters, calciners, aluminum furnaces, and lead smelters.