Waste incinerator residue treatment: variability implications

Air pollution control residues are a hazardous waste, collected when controlling the flue gas emissions created within modern energy from waste (EfW) incinerators. They are inherently variable with regards to mineralogy and morphology. However, this variability is frequently neglected throughout the scientific literature concerned with their management. This work characterises residues collected from five different UK facilities and highlights the implications of their compositional variability for the performance of products resulting from a stabilisation/solidification treatment. It is demonstrated that the variability is of significance for the mineralogy and several key engineering properties of the products, and links between the properties of the residues and the behaviour of the products are shown. Residue variability should be considered when researching technical management options. Treatments are likely to require modification in order to satisfy performance envelopes for individual batches of residue.