Heavy metal removal from sewage sludge ash by thermochemical treatment with polyvinylchloride

Sewage sludge ash (SSA) is a prospective phosphorus source for the future production of recycling P-fertilizers. Due to its high heavy metals contents and the relatively low P plant-availability, SSA must be treated before agricultural utilisation. In this paper SSA was thermochemically treated with PVC in a bench-scale rotary furnace in order to remove heavy metals via the chloride pathway. PVC has a high Cl-content of 52-53% and a high heating value that can be beneficially used for the thermochemical process. Large amounts of waste PVC are already recovered in recycling processes, but there are still some fractions that would be available for the proposed thermochemical process, for example, the low quality near-infrared(NIR)-fraction from waste separation facilities. Heavy metals were effectively removed at temperatures in the range of 800-950 °C via the gas phase by utilisation of PVC as Cl-donor. The resulting P plant-availability was comparable to SSA thermochemically treated with MgCl(2) as Cl-donor if MgO was used as an additive (Mg-donor). A further increase of the plant availability of phosphorus was achieved by acid post-treatment of the thermochemically treated SSA.