A Health-Based Decision-Making Tool for Waste Destruction

Abstract

ABSTRACT

A major impediment to Design For Environment (DFE) and other more comprehensive design approaches is the lack of simple, effective evaluation tools. This article proposes a more comprehensive environmental analysis tool, the index I_TOX, for evaluating the effectiveness of hazardous waste destruction technologies, especially thermal-processing methods such as incineration. We evaluate the reduction of the toxicity through an incinerator by summing the concentrations of all organic emissions, each weighted by their toxicity. This methodology is applied to laboratory–scale experiment data, pilot–scale incinerator data, and full-scale incinerator data. We observed that at temperatures above the T₉₉ for a particular POHC, a large temperature window exists in which byproducts persist even though the POHC has been destroyed. The temperature that significantly reduces I_TOX is suggested as a preferred reference for designers. I_TOX is a health-based standard that measures both the health risks it is eliminating and the health risks it is creating. Using this index can provide a more accurate measure of the impact of combustion byproduct emissions on exhaust toxicity and, hence, can guide system modification or redesign to improve performance.

Key words: Incineration; design for environment; DRE, toxicity indications; thermal destruction; combustion byproducts