Issue 4, 2011

Prolonged toxicity characteristic leaching procedure for nickel and copper aluminates

Abstract

The toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) is a regulatory testing method widely employed to evaluate the environmental friendliness of waste materials. TCLP analysis provides a fast, easy and economical way to determine the mobility of waste pollutants under simulated landfill conditions. Recent studies on metal stabilization have reported the potential for nickel and copper aluminates to form in thermal treatment conditions, and suggested a more reliable method of stabilizing hazardous metals, particularly when products are to be reused. There is thus an urgent need for a convenient and effective method of quantifying metal leachability and identifying the metal leaching behavior of sparingly soluble materials. In this study, standard TCLP analysis was modified into a prolonged leaching experiment to investigate the leaching behavior of nickel and copper oxides (NiO and CuO) and their aluminates (NiAl2O4, CuAl2O4 and CuAlO2). The results demonstrate the difficulty of differentiating the leachability of highly insoluble phases, such as NiO and NiAl2O4, using the standard TCLP. The prolonged TCLP method, however, confirmed NiAl2O4 to have a lower degree of intrinsic leachability than NiO and that it could be expected to undergo congruent dissolution under landfill conditions. For the more soluble copper system, the aluminates were still found to possess a much lower degree of leachability, and their leaching behavior to follow an incongruent dissolution pattern. The results of this study prove prolonged TCLP analysis to be a convenient and effective way to evaluate the environmental friendliness of metal waste and to identify the leaching behavior of waste materials.

Graphical abstract: Prolonged toxicity characteristic leaching procedure for nickel and copper aluminates

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
28 Oct 2010
Accepted
10 Jan 2011
First published
31 Jan 2011

J. Environ. Monit., 2011,13, 829-835

Prolonged toxicity characteristic leaching procedure for nickel and copper aluminates

K. Shih and Y. Tang, J. Environ. Monit., 2011, 13, 829 DOI: 10.1039/C0EM00596G

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