Treatment of hazardous sorbents generated from the adsorption of heavy metals during incineration

The emission of heavy metals during waste incineration can be effectively reduced through the practice of employing non-toxic sorbents. These sorbents can react with toxic metals at high temperatures and create metal binding between them by various physical and chemical mechanisms. After the adsorption process, the used sorbents, which contain heavy metals, need to be desorbed to reduce their potential environmental hazards or provide reusable sorbents for economical aspect. The sorbent's adsorption efficiency is affected by different operating conditions and waste elemental compositions during incineration, which, in turn, affect their desorption characteristics. However, the effects of operating condition and waste elemental composition on the stability of heavy metals in the sorbents and the desorption efficiencies have been little studied. This study investigates the desorption characteristics of heavy metals (Cr, Pb, Cu, and Cd) from the hazardous sorbents with different extracting reagents (H(2)O, HCl, EDTA, and Na(2)S(2)O(5)). The hazardous sorbents were generated under different adsorption time and various input waste elemental compositions during incineration process.