Research works on treatment of ash generated by incinerators in order to diminish their pollution potential

Waste represents one of the most important topics in the field of environmental protection due to induced pollution on all environmental media (water, air and soil). From the three known categories of waste (inert, non-hazardous, and hazardous), the last one rises serious issues from the point of view of technical and financial management. A special category of hazardous waste according to national regulations is represented by medical waste that cannot be disposed without adequate treatment. Experimental results obtained on treatment of bottom and filter ashes resulted from incineration of medical waste are presented.
Chemical analysis of waste samples and corresponding leachates has revealed that values of many
indicators exceed maximum admissible values for storage on hazardous waste deposits. Two variants of technological flows were developed for treatment of bottom and filter ash waste: washing under mixing with acid solution followed by filtration of obtained mixtures and incorporation of waste in “concrete” type matrices through mixing with sand and cement. These two technological flows variants had as final result waste types for which leaching indicators values were situated below the legal norms for storage on nonhazardous waste deposits.