Comparison of the characteristics of flow-through and flow-around leaching tests of solidified heavy metal wastes

This paper introduces a research work on studying the possibility of using a flow-through leaching test method to stimulate the leaching behaviour of the cement-based stabilized/solidified (S/S) hazardous wastes. Both the flow-through leaching and the more common flow-around (dynamic leaching) test methods were carried out in the study to compare the leaching behaviour of the solidified waste under different leaching environments. The solidified waste samples were prepared from five kinds of heavy metals with two kinds of binders. The metals were Pb2+, Zn2+, Cu2+, Ni2+ (positive ions as nitrate), and Cr6+ (as a negative ion in potassium dichromate), and the binders were type I Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and Pulverised Fuel Ash (PFA). The results of two series of flow-through and flow-around leaching experiments are reported and compared in this paper. Mathematical models for simulating the leaching behaviour of the flow-through and flow-around leaching conditions were used to determine the diffusivities of the contaminants. The results show that, since the matrix of the solid waste in a flow-through leaching test is always being degraded, the diffusivities continuously increased during the leaching period. The range of the diffusivities was 10E-8 to 10E-3 cm2/s, which corresponds to the case of liquid phase diffusion. But in the case of the flow-around (dynamic leaching) test, the range of the diffusivities was 10E-18 to 10E-9 cm2/s which was similar to solid phase diffusion, and the variation of the diffusivity with time was not regular.