Behavior of polychlorinated benzenes, PCDD/Fs and dioxin-like PCBs during incineration of solid waste contaminated with mg/kg levels of hexachlorobenzene

Hexachlorobenzene (HCB), one of the well-known Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), is present in some pigments and these raw materials with maximum level of several thousand of mg/kg. Considering that these pigments have been used in long-life products, such as car parts, construction materials and electrical and electronic equipments, the articles containing HCB at a concentration of several hundred mg/kg still have to undergo waste management. In this study, we performed a combustion experiment involving solid waste containing 300 mg/kg of HCB as the input material using a pilot-scale incinerator to determine the destruction of HCB and its influence on the behavior of other polychlorinated benzenes (CBzs) and unintentionally produced POPs, such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCBs). HCB at a concentration of 300 mg/kg in the input material was destroyed mainly in the primary combustion zone. Overall the destruction efficiency of HCB was > 99.9985%. The input concentration of HCB did not significantly affect the formation and destruction or the final emissions of other CBzs, PCDD/Fs and dl-PCBs. These results indicate that incineration, when operated and structured to minimize emissions of dioxin-related compounds, is considered to be one of the Best Available Technologies for the appropriate treatment of waste containing HCB with a concentration in the order of mg/kg.