Formation and destruction of chlorinated pollutants during sewage sludge incineration

The limitations facing land filling and recycling and the planned ban on sea disposal of sludge leads to the expectation that the role of sludge incineration will increase in the future. The expected increase in sludge incineration will also increase scrutiny of the main drawback to sewage sludge incineration-the formation of hazardous air pollutants (HAPs). Despite the extensive body of knowledge available on sewage sludge combustion, very few studies have been conducted on the formation of HAPs during sludge combustion. In this work, the interactions between sewage sludge pyrolysis products and sludge ash were investigated using a dual chamber flow reactor system and a horizontal laboratory scale reactor. The results of this study shows that sludge ash can catalyze oxidation and chlorination of organics. In the absence of HCl in the gas stream, sludge ash acts as an oxidizing catalyst, but in the presence of HCl, sludge ash acts as a chlorination catalyst producing high yields of organochloride compounds.