Heavy metals released from municipal solid waste incinerators have become a major environmental concern. A comprehensive knowledge of metal vapor condensation in fly ash particles during incineration is essential for alleviating heavy metal toxicity, and for optimizing incineration process parameters and flue-gas cleaning systems. In this paper, the condensation of zinc vapor during flue-gas cooling in a 200 t/d fluidized bed incinerator and a 150 t/d moving grate incinerator was characterized and comparatively studied using high resolution synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). Principal component analysis, target transformation, and linear combination fitting were employed to identify zinc species directly from size fractionated fly ash particles. The chemical reaction behaviors of different zinc species were described by thermodynamic equilibrium simulations. Consistent with previous theoretical analysis and laboratory scale tests, the condensation behavior of zinc in an industrial incineration system is mainly affected by the sulfur/chlorine ratio and the inorganic particulates. It is found that zinc chloride is the major zinc species in a moving grate incinerator but willemite dominates in the fluidized bed incinerator. The high sulfur and silica/alumina particle concentration in the fluidized bed system changes the condensation propensity of vapors of Zn compounds. Adjusting the concentrations of SO 2 in flue-gas can inhibit the formation of zinc chlorides. Silica, alumina, aluminosilicates, and calcium-based compounds are potential sorbents for transforming zinc to less harmful species. To prevent toxic zinc species contained in fine particles from escaping into the atmosphere, wet scrubbers are more suitable for cleaning flue-gases in moving grate incineration systems, while improving the efficiency of dust removal is more important for fluidized bed incineration systems.

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Thermal melting is an energy-costing solution for stabilizing toxic fly ash discharged from the air pollution control system in the municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) plant. In this paper, two different types of biomass ashes are used as additives to co-melt with the MSWI fly ash for reducing the melting temperature and energy cost. The effects of biomass ashes on the MSWI fly ash melting characteristics are investigated. A new mathematical model has been proposed to estimate the melting heat reduction based on the mass ratios of major ash components and measured melting temperature. Experimental and calculation results show that the melting temperatures for samples mixed with biomass ash are lower than those of the original MSWI fly ash and when the mass ratio of wood ash reaches 50%, the deformation temperature (DT), the softening, hemisphere temperature (HT) and fluid temperature (FT) are, respectively, reduced by 189°C, 207°C, 229°C, and 247°C. The melting heat of mixed ash samples ranges between 1650 and 2650 kJ/kg. When 50% wood ash is mixed, the melting heat is reduced by more than 700 kJ/kg for the samples studied in this paper. Therefore, for the vitrification treatment of the fly ash from MSW or other waste incineration plants, wood ash is a potential fluxing assistant.

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