"Correlations between PCDD/F Homologue Concentrations and TEQ Values in Laboratory-, Boiler-, and Practical-Scale Incinerators" 

Fukuya Iino¹, Takumi Takasuga², Abderrahmane Touati³, Brian K. Gullett⁴

¹National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
²Shimadzu Techno-Research Inc.
³ARCADIS Geraghty & Miller, Inc.
⁴United States Environmental Protection Agency

Dioxin 2001 (Korea 2001/9/9)

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Abstract

The toxic equivalency (TEQ) values of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) are predicted with a model based on the homologue concentrations measured from a laboratory-scale reactor (124 data points), a package boiler (61 data points) and operating municipal waste incinerators (114 data points). 

Regardless of the three scales and types of equipment, the different temperature profiles, sampling emissions and/or solids (fly ash), and the various chemical and physical properties of the fuels, all the PCDF plots showed highly linear correlations (R2>0.99). 

The fitting lines of the reactor and the boiler data were almost linear with slope of unity, whereas the slope of the MWI data was 0.86, which is caused by higher predicted values for samples with high measured TEQ. 

The strong correlation also implies that each of the 10 toxic PCDF congeners has a constant concentration relative to its respective total homologue concentration despite a wide range of facility types and combustion conditions. 

The PCDD plots showed significant scatter and poor linearity, which implies that the relative concentration of PCDD TEQ isomers is more sensitive to variations in reaction conditions than that of the PCDF isomers. 

Keywords

polychlorinated dibenzofurans, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins