United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Hazardous Waste Engineering
Research Laboratory
Cincinnati OH 45268
Research and Development
EPA/600/S2-87/095 Feb. 1988
SERA Project Summary
Hazardous Waste Combustion in
Industrial Processes: Cement
and Lime Kilns
Robert E. Mournighan and Marvin Branscome
The full report summarizes the
results of several studies relating to
hazardous waste combustion in
cement and lime kilns. The tests
included in this study are four kilns
tested by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), four kilns
tested by State agencies or the kiln
operator, two Canadian tests, and
one Swedish test The predominant
types of wastes tested included
chlorinated organic compounds,
aromatic compounds, and metal-
contaminated waste oil. The kiln
types include lime kilns and cement
kilns, which included the dry, wet,
and preheated processes. Fabric
filters and electrostatic precipitators
(ESPs) were the pollution control
devices used in these processes,
and the primary fuels included coal,
coke, coal/coke, fuel oil, and natural
gas/coke.
The parameters examined in this
study were Destruction and Removal
Efficiency (ORE) of the Principal
Organic Hazardous Constituents,
particulate and HCI emissions,
metals, and the effect of burning
hazardous waste on SO?, NOX> and
CO emissions. The primary
conclusion of this study is that DREs
of 99.99% or greater can be obtained
in properly operating calcining kilns.
Particulate matter can increase when
chlorinated wastes are burned in a
kiln equipped with an electrostatic
precipitator. Those kilns equipped
with fabric filters showed no change
in emissions.
This Project Summary was
developed by EPA's Hazardous Waste
Engineering Research Laboratory,
Cincinnati, OH, to announce key
findings of the research project that is
fully documented in a separate report
of the same title (see Project Report
ordering information at back).
Background
With the passage of the Hazardous
and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984,
more categories of liquid hazardous
wastes will be banned from land disposal
facilities. At the same time, energy
intensive industries are increasingly
seeking to find new sources of less
expensive fuel. Because many industrial
waste products can be readily used as
fuels and some hazardous wastes can be
economically processed and made into
fuels, a market based on hazardous
waste has been developing in the United
States. If reprocessed waste liquids do
contain significant quantities of toxic
metals, halogenated materials, or PCBs,
and have a high heating value, they can
be economically substituted for coal,
coke, oil or natural gas in many industrial
processes. There are many examples of
high temperature industrial furnaces and
processes which already burn hazardous
waste as supplemental fuel: cement kilns
(both wet and dry processes), lime and
dolomite kilns, clay processing kilns,
steel blast furnaces, phosphate rock
calciners and dryers, iron ore dryers,
brick and tile tunnel kilns, mineral wool
furnaces and glass melt furnaces.
In particular, there has been a great
deal of interest in the use of cement kilns
for the disposal of industrial wastes as
supplemental fuel for several reasons: 1)
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the production process is highly energy
intensive; fuel savings may translate into
a competitive advantage; 2) kiln
temperatures are higher (2700°F) and
gas residence times are longer (6-10
seconds) than those encountered in most
hazardous waste incinerators; 3) cement
product quality is relatively insensitive to
addition of most waste trace impurities.
A US EPA study, published in 1982,
recommended that the Agency conduct
a full assessment of the use of waste
organic materials as supplemental fuel in
cement kiln1. As a result of that
recommendation, the Agency began a
field test program at facilities using
hazardous waste as fuel. In addition to
these EPA field tests, results from test
burns reported by other investigators are
incorporated in this study. A summary
of the tests used in this assessment and
a description of each site is listed m
Table 1. The data generated by these
studies are being used to assess health
and environmental risks, develop
regulations, and define reasonable
operating limits.
Using the data from all test sites listed
in Table 1, the full report is intended to
evaluate the effectiveness of the
calcining process in destroying the
waste, to determine any significant
change in criteria pollutant emissions,
and to measure HCI emissions from the
process when burning chlorinated
wastes.
Particulate Matter
Most of the tests conducted at kilns
using electrostatic precipitators exhibited
little change in particulate emissions
when burning hazardous wastes. A
summary of the data for each test is
listed in Table 2. The major exceptions
are tests during which there were either
process equipment malfunctions or high
amounts of chlorine being fed to the kiln.
The latter tests have led to the
conclusion that substantial chlorine input
(>6 kg CI/Mg clinker) to a kiln can lead
to greater particulate emissions in kilns
equipped with electrostatic precipitators.
Destruction and Removal
Efficiencies for Principal
Organic Hazardous
Constitutents
Cement kilns, burning hazardous
wastes as a fuel, will have to meet, in the
near future, Federal regulations for
incinerators. Specifically, with regard to
the Principal Organic Hazardous
Constituents (POHCs), the facility must
achieve a destruction and removal
efficiency (ORE) of 99.99% for each
designated POHC.
The ORE is determined as follows:
W. -W
DRE=
°ut
xlOO%
where:
Win = mass feed rate of a specific
POHC in waste feed stream
Wout = mass flow rate of the same
POHC in exhaust emissions to the
atmosphere
Table 3 summarizes the results of the
tests for which ORE was determined. In
general, the results show that cement
kilns, when well operated, can achieve
destruction and removal efficiencies
equal to those achieved by well designed
and well operated hazardous waste
incinerators.
Conventional Pollutants and
Hydrogen Chloride Emissions
The process materials in the cement
and lime manufacturing process are, by
their nature, very alkaline. This property
enables the process to adsorb acid
gases, such as HCI, generated in the
combustion of chlorinated organics. For
the most part, the data shows that for
typical amounts of chlorinated waste fed
to these processes, HCI emissions are
lower than the 1.8 kg/hr limit specified by
the incinerator regulations. HCI removal
efficiencies, based on stack gas
measurements, were greater than 99%.
The criteria pollutants, CO, SO2 and
NOX were measured in six of the nine
tests evaluated. Significant changes in
pollutant emissions were noted from test
to test, but were not related to the use of
hazardous waste as a fuel. Normal
fluctuations m fuel, combustion air flow
and air preheater temperature are
responsible for changes in the observed
pollutant emissions.
Lead Emissions
Lead emissions and the lead content
of process waste dust increase when
hazardous waste, contaminated with
significant quantities of lead, are burned.
However, baseline emissions (no waste
being burned) of lead are very low to
begin with and, although emissions do
increase with waste burning, more than
99 percent of the lead entering the
process is captured by the process
materials and the resulting emission rati
are not significant.
Conclusions
Field tests conducted at nine ceme
and lime producing facilities burnii
hazardous wastes indicate that POH
DREs generally exceed 99.99 perce
under good operating conditions. Crite
pollutant emissions (S02, NOX,CO) we
not significantly affected by was
burning. HCI and lead emissio
increased with waste burning, b
emission rates were not significa
Particulate emissions increase wi
increasing chlorine content of the was
in facilities equipped with ESPs. Cont
of particulate from kilns equipped w
baghouses is not a significant problem.
Reference
(1) Hazelwood, D., et al, 19
Assessment of Waste Fuel Use
Cement Kilns, U S. Environmen
Protection Agency, 1982.
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Table 1. Summary of Cement and Lime Kiln Tests
Plant Date Process APCD
Fuel
Wastes
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
St. Lawrence
Cement
Mississauga, ON
Stora Vika
Sweden
Marquette
Cement
Oglesby, IL
San Juan
Cement
Puerto Rico
Alpha Cement
Cementon, NY
General
Portland
Lebec, CA
General
Portland
Paulding, OH
Lone Star
Industries
Oglesby, IL
Rockwell Lime
Manitowoc. Wl
1974
1975-76
1978
1981
1981-82
1982
1982
1983
1983
1983
Dry
Wet
Wet
Dry
Dry
Wet
Dry
Wet
Dry
Lime
ESP
ESP
ESP
ESP
Baghouse
ESP
Baghouse
ESP
ESP
Baghouse
Fuel Oil Waste oil
Fuel Oil Chlorinated
organics
Coal Chlorinated
organics,
PCBs,
Freon 113
Coal Hydrocarbon
solvents
C<5%
chlorine)
Fuel Oil Chlorinated
organics
Coal Solvents
Coal Hydrocarbon
solvents
Coal Hydrocarbon
solvents,
Freon 113
Coal/Coke Hydrocarbon
solvents,
Freon 113
Coke Hydrocarbon
solvents
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Table 2. Summary of Particulate Emission
Plant Test Condition
St. Lawrence
Rockwell Lime
Stora Vika
Marquette
Alpha Cement
San Juan
General
Portland
Paulding
Lone Star
Chlorinated
aliphatics '
Chlorinated
aromatics
PCBs
Baseline
Lubricating oil
Baseline
Waste
Baseline
Aliphatics
Baseline
PCBs
Baseline
Chlorophenols &
Phenoxyac/ds
Baseline
Freon 113
Baseline
Waste solvents
Baseline
Solvents
Baseline
Wastes
Baseline
Wastes
Baseline
Waste2
Baseline
Data
Particulate Emission
grlscf Ib/hr /to/ton3
021
0286
0.078
0038
0.064
0.707
0076
0.073
0039
0.009
0.024
0077
0058
0.074
0062
0022
0.074
0093
0047
0050
0043
0047
0030
0030
0.77
723
45
44
27
83
739
2.2
2.0
27
4 7
12.7
5.9
309
7.7
333
11 7
58
80
44
53
22.4
27 7
189
196
116
3
1 1
1 1
05
07
1.1
026
024
088
0.27
0.53
0.25
7.36
0.34
7 39
049
27
208
09
7 1
066
0.64
0.65
0.64
20
Chloride Input to
Kiln (kg/Mg)
4.0
55
25
-
-
2 7
-
44
0
36
0
095
0
7 7
0
1 1
5.5
-
22
0.2
1 2
0.2
1 Process upset during test.
2ESP malfunctioned during test.
3lb of particulate emitted per ton of product material (cement).
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Table 3. Summary of ORE Data
Plant Waste Component
St. Lawrence Cement
Chlorinated ahphatics
Chlorinated aromatics
PCBs
Destruction Efficiency
> 99.990
> 99.989
> 99.986
Stora Vika
San Juan Cement
Los Robles
(General Portland)
Methy/ene chloride
Trichloroethylene
All chlorinated hydrocarbons
PCB
Chlorinated phenols
Phenoxy acids
Freon 113
Methy/ene chloride
Trichloromethane
Carbon tetrachlonde
Methylene chloride
1,1,1-Tnchloroethane
1,3.5- Tnmethylbenzene
Xylene
> 99.995
> 99.9998
> 99.988
> 99 99998
> 99 99999
> 99.99998
> 99 99986
93.292-99.997
92.171 -99 96
91.043-99.996
>9999
99.99
> 99.95
>9999
Pauldmg
(General Portland)
Oglesby
(Lone Stao
Rockwell Lime
Methylene chloride
Freon 113
Methyl ethyl ketone
1.1,1-Trichloroethane
Toluene
Methy/ene chloride
Freon 113
Methyl ethyl ketone
1,1,1-Tnchloroethane
Toluene
Methylene chloride
Methyl ethyl ketone
1,1,1-Tnchloroethane
Trichloroethylene
Tetrachloroethylene
Toluene
99 956-99.998
> 99.999
99.978-99.997
99.997-99.999
99 940-99.988
99.94-99.99
99999
99 997-99.999
> 99 999
99 986-99.998
99.9947-99 9995
99.9992-99.9997
99.9955-99.9982
99.997 -99 9999
99 997 -99.9999
99.995 -99.998
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The EPA author Robert E. Mournighan (also the EPA Project Officer, see
below) is with the Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory,
Cincinnati, OH 45268 and Marvin Branscome is with Research Triangle Institute,
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709.
The complete report, entitled "Hazardous Waste Combustion in Industrial
Processes: Cement and Lime Kilns" (Order No. PB 88-126 4121 AS; Cost:
$14.95, subject to change) will be available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Hazardous Waste Engineering Research Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Cincinnati, OH 45268
.3 i
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmental Research
Information
Cincinnati OH 45268
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