On-line heavy metal analysis in the fumes from a laboratory fluid-bed incinerator

An inductively coupled plasma spectrometer was used with a laboratory fluidized-bed reactor and adapted to continuously measure the heavy metal concentrations in exhaust gases. The system is devoted to the thermal treatment of metal-spiked model wastes; on-line analyses were performed to study heavy metal release. This method was used to study the kinetics of heavy metal vaporization from pure mineral and pure organic matrices to determine the roles of temperature, residence time, gas and matrix composition, and initial metal speciation. Then, a more complex metal-spiked matrix, derived from real waste, was burned to simulate metal release during municipal solid-waste incineration. Three metals were considered: Cd, Pb, and Zn. In all cases, the experimental setup was successfully used to monitor the metal evaporation process during fluidized-bed incineration.