Wet Scrubbers for meeting the new HMIWI MACT Standard
Posted by Andy Bartocci on Tue, Jul 13, 2010 @ 08:53 AM
I gave recent presentations at the International Thermal Treatment (IT3) Conference in San Francisco and the Annual AWMA conference in Calgary, Canada that discusses the new hospital/medical/infectious waste incineration (HMIWI) MACT standard and implications for existing systems. Below is the abstract. A free download is available by clicking on the link below. The paper presents emissions data on several scrubber systems and discusses how these relate to the new rules. I also discuss cost effective strategies to comply with the new rules using add-on controls.
ABSTRACT
On October 6th, 2009, proposed revisions to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and Emission guidelines (EGs) for the Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerators (HMIWI) Standards became final. These regulations, originally promulgated in 1997, were established under Section 129 of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and serve as the maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for hospital, medical, and infectious waste incinerators.
Wet scrubbers are currently used on many hospital, medical, and infectious waste incinerators in the United States. The new emission limits exceed the design capability of most of these systems, primarily with respect to particulate matter (PM), lead (Pd), cadmium (Cd), and mercury (Hg). As a consequence, new control strategies are needed to meet the more stringent standards.
This paper presents a cost effective control strategy for meeting the new limits and discusses how the strategy has been implemented on similar hazardous waste incinerator scrubbers.
Please click on the below icon to download a white paper on this topic: "Wet Scrubber Control Strategy to Meet the New Hospital/Medical/Infectious Waste Incinerator Standard"
Photo Credit: bravosixninerdelta