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MEE 5801, Industrial and Hazardous Waste Management 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VII Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Assess the fundamental science and engineering principles applicable to the management and treatment of solid and hazardous wastes. 1.1 Discuss the process for characterizing cake solids derived from a liquid treatment process as

being either hazardous or non-hazardous. 1.2 Discuss the relevance of the analytical testing methods as they relate to modeling waste

behaviors in a landfill.

5. Evaluate operations and technologies related to industrial and hazardous wastes. 5.1 Discuss liquid effluent management strategies related to chemical cleaning operations within an

oil refinery facility. 5.2 Discuss liquid effluent management strategies related to a sewer cleanout of a

petrochemical facility.

Reading Assignment Chapter 5: Wastewater Treatment in Unconventional Oil and Gas Industries, pp. 129-143 Chapter 6: Wastewater Sewer Systems, pp. 161-180

Unit Lesson Bahadori (2014) provides us with design considerations for our solid and liquid effluents waste management system in our assigned reading in this unit. This material covers a wide cross-section of industry effluents and will subsequently help you in your final design preparations for your course project (proposed industrial and hazardous waste treatment facility) that is due in our last unit. Closely consider the scenario influent contributing sources and compare them against your design considerations in your own proposed industrial and hazardous waste treatment facility document that you have developed since our first unit. You may find additional concerns to address and consequently additional features to include in your own system design. In our last unit, we spent time understanding how to condition and then dewater sludge from our system using filter presses and belt presses to create a cake from the suspended solids in our liquid treatment system. In this unit, we are going to learn how to appropriately characterize the cake through analytical testing in order to understand and ultimately meet Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) Hazardous Waste Characterization standards, pursuant to 40CFR 261 (Blackman, 2001), prior to disposing of the cake as a waste (either as a hazardous or non-hazardous solid waste). We will reserve the solid waste disposal strategies for our last unit (Unit VIII). First, let’s understand how to characterize the waste as either hazardous or non-hazardous waste. Given that the waste cake is derived from the wastewater treatment system, 40CFR 261.31-33(e, f) regulations are not necessarily considered for listed wastes (F, K, P, and U). However, a deeper consideration to this part of the standard is relevant when managing solid waste, such as what is studied in the course Advanced Solid Waste Management here at CSU. One of the most fundamental principles in characterizing solid waste is one’s ability to conceptualize the intent of the testing procedures prescribed by the RCRA Hazardous Waste Characterization standard. The standard calls for one to test for four distinctly different aspects of the waste: (a) toxicity, (b) reactivity, (c) corrosivity, and (d) ignitability (Blackman, 2001).

UNIT VII STUDY GUIDE Integrated Approaches to Liquid and Solid Industrial & Waste Management Systems Design

MEE 5801, Industrial and Hazardous Waste Management 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

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First, let’s consider the last three, reactivity, corrosivity, and ignitability (RCI), often referred to by the acronym RCI by industry chemical testing laboratory staff chemists. It is important to know and understand this acronym as you will eventually be ordering this test from an independent, accredited environmental chemical testing laboratory. Once the testing laboratory conducts the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved tests on your solid cake sample with the prescribed testing method, you will receive an analytical testing report. You simply compare your test report for each parameter of the RCI against the RCRA limits (not unlike what we have been doing with our influent and effluent lab reports within our interactive model in previous units) to see if the cake sample falls within range (under the limit) of the RCRA established limit for each parameter. For every parameter that is not within range (exceeds the limit) of the RCRA standard, the standard provides for a code (“D” codes for RCI parameters) that must be reported on waste manifests, prior to locating and disposing of the cake (now considered to be a hazardous waste with a D code). According to Blackman (2001), the 40CFR 261.23 limits Reactivity (D003) to the following: (a) containing sulfides, (b) containing explosives, (c) containing other reactives, (d) containing water reactives, or (e) containing cyanides. 40CFR 261.22 limits Corrosivity (D002) to the following: (a) aqueous liquids with a pH < 2 and/or pH > 12.5, or (b) liquids that corrode steel > 6.35 mm/year at 130ºF. 40CFR 261.21 limits Ignitability (DOO1) to the following: (a) liquids with a flashpoint < 140ºF, (b) flammable solids, (c) DOT flammable gases, or (d) DOT oxidizers. Second, let’s consider the toxicity aspect of the waste as mentioned earlier. Remember that the purpose of the laboratory testing of the waste is nothing more than an effort to understand the chemical and physical behavior of the waste in a final disposition (such as a landfill). Consequently, it is imperative that we are able to predict the waste cake’s ability to be mobile and leach through the landfill cell. This is accomplished with a laboratory test prescribed by the EPA termed a Toxicity Characteristics Leaching Procedure (TCLP). When ordering a “complete TCLP and RCI,” one is requesting the RCI parameters described earlier as well as a test for herbicides, pesticides, heavy metals, and other known toxic compounds (Blackman, 2001). The idea behind the TCLP test is to model the waste sitting in the landfill cell, even during rain events and other moisture-related activities (including precipitation and chemical oxidation). As such, the test involves putting several inches of sand into a 1000 ml glass jar, adding a determined amount of cake on the top of the sand, and adding a determined amount of deionized water on top of the cake. The sample is then tumbled between 18 and 22 hours, pursuant to EPA methodology (Wagner, 1998). Once the tumbling is complete, a certain amount of deionized water will have leached through the sand, carrying any leachable compounds with it to the bottom of the jar. This “TCLP extraction” is then sub-sampled and tested for the parameters listed in 40CFR 261.24. Not unlike the RCI coding, a “D” code characterizing the waste as hazardous is then assigned for any parameters found to exceed the RCRA established limits for that parameter, ranging from D004 to D043. For example, a TCLP extracted sample containing > 5.0 mg/L (ppm) would be characterized as a D004 (hazardous) listed waste. Likewise, a TCLP extracted sample containing > 0.2 vinyl chloride would be characterized as a D043 (hazardous) listed waste (Blackman, 2001). When you draft your final section (Unit VIII) of your proposed industrial and hazardous waste treatment facility proposal, remember to include the testing aspect of the cake solids derived from your treatment system. Hazardous waste characterization is a critical component of the entire industrial and hazardous waste management system. In our next unit, we will be learning how to manage (and dispose of) the waste that we have now characterized from our system.

References Bahadori, A. (2014). Waste management in the chemical and petroleum industries. West Sussex, United

Kingdom: Wiley. Blackman, W. (2001). Basic hazardous waste management (3rd ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. Wagner, R. (1998). Guide to environmental analytical methods (4th ed.). Schenectady, NY: Genium.