Effluent testing for the Oak Ridge Toxic Substances Control Act mixed waste incinerator, December 11, 1991

As part of a quarterly program to assess incinerator performance in vital areas, an emissions test for uranium and particulates was performed at the K-1435 dual-purpose (TSCA/RCRA) incinerator on December 11, 1991. The test lasted 5 h. The Incinerator met Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) standards for particulate emissions and experienced uranium stack emissions of 6.11 g/h (or 8% of feed) during a 5-h performance experiment conducted under TSCA conditions on December 11, 1991. Partitioning of uranium to the scrubber purge streams was comparable with past performance. Particulate size distributions in the scrubber purge streams showed finer mean particle diameters, but no statistically significant difference between the purge streams is apparent The relatively high uranium emissions are believed to result from the exceptionally high chlorine content of the feed and the fact that approximately 79% of the uranium was fed to the secondary combustion chamber (SCC) rather than the kiln.