Emerging Technologies in

Hazardous Waste Management

Dr K Srinivas
Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd.

Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd

 Hazardous Waste

• Waste
– Lack of Value/ Use
– Restore Value
• Solid Waste
– Not Flowable
– Spreadable
– Non-Liquids/ Gases
• Hazardous Wastes
– Irreversible Damage
– Incapacitative Illness
– Human Health and/or Environment

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 Fate of Waste
precipitation

odor

gas

Rodents ,pests
& fire hazards
dust

litter

WASTE Contaminated
soil

erosion
Contaminated LEACHATE
surface water

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 Solution
• Reduce, Reuse and Recycle remain high priority in Waste
Management

• Treatment to Detoxify:

• Biological Treatment

• Physical, Chemical by limited molecular

arrangement to recover valuable materials

• On site, off site Remediation

• However, Waste remains hence

• Bury/ Burn (Thermal Destruction)

• Landfill/ Destruction either directly or after

treatment becomes necessary

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 Flowchart
Weighing, Recording
Waste tracking forms
Comprehensive
Analysis of Waste M Waste Sample Collection
A
Waste Acceptance N Temporary Storage

Criteria I
Finger Printing Analysis
F
Decision on disposal E Reuse/ Waste Confirmation
Recyc
S
Collection & Transportation
T
Management of waste by
various methods

Waste receival at site 5

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 Thermal Destruction
• Advantages
• Hazard reduction is Permanent
• Can be applied to waste mixes
• Significant volume reduction to be landfilled
• Energy can be recovered most of the times
• End materials (Ash, Slag) can be used for other purposes. Ex;
stabilization of other wastes
• Disadvantages
• Not economical for all wastes
• Monitoring methods are still evolving
• Not enough knowledge about the formation of Toxic compounds

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 Thermal Destruction - Technologies
• Incineration
• Rotary Kiln (Widely used across the globe)
• Multiple Hearth
• Cement Kiln
• Fluidized bed
• Plasma Arc
• Molten Salt
• Ocean Bed Destruction
• Radiation (High Temp Fluid Wall)
• Electron Bombardment

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 Cement Kiln
• Attractive for destruction of harder to burn waste due
to very high residence times, good mixing and high
temperatures

• Alkaline Environment neutralizes chlorine

Disadvantage

• Burning of Chlorinated waste limited by operating

requirements and cement quality

• Need to have specialized feeding systems

• Could require retrofitting of pollution control

equipment and of instrumentation for monitoring to
bring existing facilities to compliance level
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 Plasma Arc
Plasma Arc

• Very high energy radiation breaks chemical bonds directly without series of
chemical reactions

• Extreme DREs possible with no or little chance of PICs,

• Mobile units planned

Disadvantages

• Difficult to handle heterogeneous wastes

• Limited throughput

• High use of NaoH for scrubbers

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 Molten Salt Reactor
Molten salt Reactors
• Achieve rapid heating and thorough mixing of waste in a fluid
heat
• Molten Salt act as a catalyst and efficient heat transfer medium.
• Self sustaining for some wastes
• Units are compact potentially portable
• Needs Minimum air pollution controls
• Some combustion products e.g., ash and acidic gases are
retained in the melt.
Disadvantage:
• Commercial –scale applications face potential problems with
regeneration or disposal of as-contaminated salt
• Not Suitable for high ash wastes
• Chamber corrosion can be a problem
• Avoiding reaction vessel corrosion may imply tradeoff with DRE

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 Ocean Disposal Incineration
Sea Incineration : Shipboard
• Scrubbing of Exhaust gases not required on assumption that
ocean water provides sufficient neutralization and dilution.
Advantage:
• Economic advantage over land based incineration
• Occurs away from human populations
• Greater combustion rate 10MT/hr.
Disadvantage:
• Regulations are not prescribed yet
• Not suitable for waste that are shock sensitive,
• capable of spontaneous combustion or chemically or thermally
unstable due to the extra handling and hazard of shipboard
environment.
• Potential for accident release of waste held in storage.

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Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd

 Others
Radiation
• High Energy Consuming
• Commercial Scale not available
• Used for Destruction of Defense substances
Electron Bombardment
• Expensive
• Used for Destruction of Defense substances
Rotary Kiln Incinerator
• Widely used across the world
• Can be used for most kinds of waste
• Robust and can achieve 99.99% DRE

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Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd

 Rotary Kiln – Conceptual Plan
PACKED BED
SCRUBBER

SECONDARY
CHAMBER

SPRAY DRYER BAG FILTER

REAGENT FEEDING
ARRANGMENT

ROTARY
CHARGING
HOOD KILN
VENTURI
FEEDEER

DISCHARGE
BREECH
CYCLONE

CHIMNEY
I.D.FAN

SINGLE DRUM PYROLYSER 13

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 Rotary Kiln
ROTARY KILN
THERMAL OXIDATION
TEMP :850 +_50 DEG.C AQUEOUS WASTE
DESIGN TEMP :1200 DEG.C LANCER
RPM : 0.5 TO 1.5 MAX CAP : 454 KG/HRS
MAX CAP : 3.04 MKCAL/HR
WASTE IN PUT : 1 – 1.5MT/HRS
SOLID WASTE:600-900
KGS/HR

FLUE GAS TO SCC RAM FEEDER

Aux.Fuel
415 lts/hrs

ENERGITIC LIQUID WASTE

ASH LANCER
MAX CAP : 454 KG/HRS

RIDING RINGS
RIDING RINGS
KILN BRICKS: 70% HIGH ALUMINA 14

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Flue Gas Treatment

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 Contents & Flue gas

HzW CONTENTS C H O Cl N S P

Thermal
Oxidation INCINERATION

FLUE GAS CO2 H2O O2 HCl NOx SOx P2O5

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 Incinerator Parameters
Temperatures:
Rotary kiln 850 ± 50c
SCC outlet 1100 ± 100 c
Spray dryer o/l 190 – 240 c
bag filter inlet 190 – 240 c
Scrubber inlet 100 - 150 c
Idfan inlet 50 -70 c
Pressures:
Rotary kiln 5-10 mm/wc
Scc outlet 40 -50 mm/wc
Sd outlet 50- 100 mm/wc
bag filter 45mm/wc dp
Scrubber inlet 150 – 200 mm/ wc
Idfan inlet 150 - 400 mm/wc

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 Disposal Options
• Advantages

• Compared to Thermal, cheaper

• Robust for short term

• Wide variety of waste can be landfilled directly or after treatment

• Disadvantages

• Not a long term solution

• Required monitoring for Long periods.

• the post-closure, liability, and corrective action requirements will have a

greater effect on land-based disposal options relative to treatment or
incineration, and

• Not many sites have gone through a life cycle of monitoring to know the
effects 18

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 Landfills
• Non-scientific landfills

• Usually far away places from habitation. Ex: Middle of deserts

• Deep well injection

• Scientific landfills

• Single Layer

• Double Layer

• Triple Layer

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 Deep well Injection
• Injection occurs at depths far below fresh water
zones and at low enough pressures to
completely isolate the Injection zone from any
underground source of drinking water or the
surface.

• Safest method for waste disposal

• Unlike the landfill, this method enables the land

surface to be used again in the future.

• Proper plugging is necessary to prevent cross

contamination

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 What is a Scientific Landfill
• A Containment system which separates the waste

from the surrounding environment.

• Objective: To Mitigate the migration of leachate

and minimize emissions.

• Concept: Place the waste in isolation from the

environment.

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 Components of a Landfill
• Base Liner System
Waste

• Leachate Collection System

285 GSM Geo-Textile
Primary

• Gas Collection System (Optional) 300 mm

Leachate
Collection
Primary Leachate Collection System

• Final Cover/ Cap 2.0 mm HDPE geomembrane

Primary
450 mm Compacted Clay Composite
• Surface Water Drainage System Liner

285 GSM Geo-Textile

• Environmental Monitoring System 300 mm Secondary Leachate Collection / Leak Detection

• Closure and Post-Closure 2.0 mm HDPE geomembrane

Secondary
Compacted Clay Composite
Liner

Sub - Soil
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 Liner System
• HDPE Liners
– Preventive Membrane
– Impervious
– Extremely low permeability
– Low Time of Travel
– Thickness = Load, Anchorage Distance,
Angle of Friction, Stressess
• Clay Liners
– Protective Membrane
– Low Permeation
– High Time of Travel
– Time of Travel
• Composite Liners
– Clay and HDPE in Combination
– GCL and HDPE in Combination

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Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd

 Filling up of Landfills
• Co-disposal of waste after meeting

disposable criteria

• Complex Leachate

• Risk of reaction by mixing of waste

• Cheaper

• Disposal in Containers

• No Leachate generation

• Safest way of disposal

• Comparatively expensive

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Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd

 Summary
• Reduce, Reuse and Recycle remain high priority in Waste Management

• Rotary Kiln incinerator remains to be the most suitable economically

and widely used technology for Thermal destruction

• Double Layered scientific landfills are predominantly used to dispose of

wastes with low calorific values

• Containerized disposal will be a better option than co-disposal

• However, this is a short term solution

• Long term Liability are not known

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Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd

Thank You

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Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd