Monitoring incinerator effluents

The routine monitoring of every hazardous constituent of the effluent gases of operating incinerators is not now possible. EPA has established procedures to characterize incinerator performance in terms of the destruction of selected components of the anticipated waste stream. These compounds, labeled principal organic hazardous components (POHCs), are currently ranked on the basis of their difficulty of incineration and their concentration in the anticipated waste stream. The destraction efficiency is expressed in terms of elimination of the test species, with greater than 99.99 percent removal typically judged acceptable provided that toxic by-products are not generated in the process. 

The isomer profiles of TeCDTs in the selected-ion monitoring chromatograms of stack gas samples from waste incineration and from pulp mill effluents are quite different. Still, the concentrations of TeCDTs in the stack gas samples were quite high, while the concentrations in pulp mill effluents were very low. The stack emissions contain more isomers which have shorter retention times in the HP-5 column than the pulp mill effluents. This may indicate that the TeCDTs are formed in a different way in waste combustion and in pulp bleaching [15]. SIM chromatograms with the exact value of the (M+2)+ ion of TeCDTs (321.8759) from a stack gas sample and from a pulp mill effluent sample are shown in Fig. 1. 

Tritium occurs most commonly in water as water itself (HTO). Except for radiological monitoring purposes, the main reason for determining tritium in water is to assess whether the supply is being replenished by rainfall or not. As mentioned earlier, tritiated organic compounds, usually insoluble, are used commercially mainly in luminous equipment or in medicine and research. Such material may eventually end up in tip leachates, effluents and incinerator gases. 

Baseline documents shall include information about the operation and maintenance of the waste incineration system and components, the discharge of effluents, and the monitoring and assessment of radiological impact. 

---