Research and development on the treatment of discharge gaseous from incineration plant by using electron beam irradiation in Malaysia

The estimated amount of Municipal Solid Waste generated in Malaysia is 16,000 ton/day with the initial cost of the entire activity is estimated to be worth RM35 billions must be solved as soon as possible. Research and development in the field of treatment to the gas emitted from the incinerator using an electron beam is very new in Malaysia. MINT, as a nuclear agency in the country, has initiated 3 projects in this field, that is, treatment of SO2 and NOx, the second project is the determination and sampling of VOC in the stack gaseous and the third project is the treatment of volatile organic compounds (VOC) using electron beam. A laboratory scale test rig to treat simulated flue gas using electron beam technology was installed at the Alurtron EB-Irradiation Center. Results from the commissioning test runs and subsequent experimental work showed that the efficiency of flue gas removal is as high as 65% for NOx and 81% for SO2 at 8.0mA current and 1.0 MeV. Early findings indicated that the VOC content in the flue gas were high, which were mainly released during the incineration process. About 50 compounds were detected and 45% of the compounds detected were acidic in nature. The concentrations of other compounds such as toluene, xylene and heptane, which are precursors to photochemical ozone formation, were also studied. MINT has also conducted a study on electron beam treatment of VOC by using benzene as a model. In this experiment, benzene is kept in a Tedlar bag whereby it is irradiated in a static and control conditions. The concentrations of benzene gas used are 100 ppm, 10 ppmv, and 1 ppmv. The results indicated that the dose needed for 70-95% degradation of benzene molecules is between 8-12 kGy. (author)