Recent experience with air pollution control on sewage sludge, municipal solid waste and industrial incinerators

During the last two decades, incineration of sewage sludge, municipal solid waste (MSW) and hazardous waste as a means of volume reduction have grown in importance. Although Europe has been leading the development in the use of incineration, North America today also has a substantial amount of incinerators. As the application of incinerators has increased, concerns have been raised over potential air pollution impacts associated with their use. This has led to the promulgation of emission limits and control requirements for a wide range of pollutants. This paper describes the trends in the emission requirements both in Europe and North America as well as the development of air pollution control technology to cope with the more stringent requirements. The paper describes development of a new process, the High-Performance Spray Dryer Absorber System, which is designed to meet all the new and future emission requirements. Finally the paper deals with mercury removal and results of a 5-year study of mercury revolatilization from dry end product.