4 Material und Umwelt
Einstufung von Aschen und Schlacken aus der Abfallverbrennung im Hinblick auf die weitere Verwertung
(2024)
There are two mirror entries in the European Waste Catalogue for bottom ash and slag from waste incineration: 19 01 11* and 19 01 12. Entry 19 01 11* describes a waste material containing hazardous substances. It was shown that only the hazardous property HP14 (ecotoxic) is of relevance for the classification. If substances with the hazard statement code (HSC) H400, H410, H411, H412 and H413 are present in incineration bottom ash (IBA) above certain level the waste is classified as hazardous, otherwise it is non-hazardous (in this case 19 01 12). It was further shown that only Cu, Zn and Pb compounds have an impact on the classification using a summation rule: 100xΣ c(H410) + 10xΣ c(H411) + Σ c(H412). Limit value is 25 percent. It is obvious that H410 substances have the highest impact. Therefore, the knowledge of the elemental composition of IBA is not sufficient because the content of distinct chemical compounds (with the respective molecular weight) is needed. When the exact speciation is not known a worst-case approach has to be applied. A practical guideline for the estimation of HP14 was developed based on the definition of 4 substance groups: 1. Metals and alloys, 2. Water-soluble substances, 3. Oxides and carbonates and 4. Substances not soluble in weak acids. In substance group 1 only fine Zn powder has the HSC H410. Water-soluble substances are assumed to be H410 substances. Their concentrations are, however, regularly below the cut-off value of 0.1 %. The amount of substance group 3 is estimated by a selective extraction with maleic acid. According to the worst-case approach it is assumed that CuCO3xCu(OH)2 and ZnO represent the respective Cu and Zn species in IBA because these substances have the highest stochiometric factor. Even with this worst-case approach results from operators of IBA treatment plant showed that the limit value of 25 % is not exceeded.
The requirements for utilization of IBA in Germany are defined in the Secondary
Building Materials Decree (Ersatzbaustoffverordnung EBV) which was set into force in August 2023. Leaching methods (batch test or column test) with a liquid-to-solid ratio of 2 l/kg are applied. IBA fulfills the requirements for class HMVA-2. Actually, even a classification of IBA as hazardous (i.e 19 01 11*) would not affect utilization but handling and transport.
Here, we report a comparative study of different sum parameter analysis methods for the extraction of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from manufactured consumer products, which can be measured by combustion ion chromatography (CIC). Therefore, a hydrolysis-based extraction method was further developed, which accounts for the addition of hydrolyzable covalently bound polyfluoroalkylated side-chain polymers (SFPs) to the extractable organic fluorine portion of the mass balance proposed as "hydrolyzable organically bound fluorine" (HOF). To test this hypothesis, the method was applied to 39 different consumer products containing fluoropolymers or monomeric PFAS taken from four different categories: outdoor textiles, paper packaging, carpeting, and permanent baking sheets. We also evaluated the method's efficiency by extracting four synthesized fluorotelomer polyacrylate reference compounds. The total fluorine (TF) and extractable organically bound fluorine (EOF) values were measured through CIC using established protocols. The TF values ranged from sub-ppb to %-levels, depending on the compound class. All samples showed results for hydrolyzed organofluorine (HOF) between 0.03 and 76.3 μg/g, while most EOF values were lower (<LOD to 58.1 μg/g). Moreover, the methods were contrasted with the "total hydrolyzable precursor" (THP) assay analyzed using gas-chromatography coupled mass spectrometry (GC-MS), which yielded concentrations of 6:2–10:2 fluorotelomer alcohols (<LOD-568 μg/g) for textile and paper samples. Furthermore, targeted analytical investigation of 25 compounds via liquid chromatography coupled tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) was conducted and accounted for significantly lower sum amounts (<LOD-0.98 μg PFAS/g). To estimate the fluorine mass balance of all methods, the fluorine levels of target analytical data were calculated and compared to the sum parameter values and evaluated. Finally, the efficiency of the extraction method was approximated by the recovery analysis of four selected SFP model compounds compared to their TF values, yielding 36.7–74.0% after extraction and 3.8–36.3% after processing the extract for the HOF sum parameter.