Comparative assessment of accelerated leaching methods for on-Site verification testing of special waste

✍ Scribed by A. Maurer; F. H. Frimmel; W. Eitel

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Weight: 172 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1086-900X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6521(1998)2:4<195::aid-fact2>3.0.co;2-t

✦ Synopsis

Time-consuming leaching test procedures, like the German standard DIN 38 414-4, are not suited for rapid on-site waste and soil assessment. Thus, different kinds of accelerated leaching methods are individually applied, often without appropriate validation. With the use of two typical samples, we investigated various leaching methods (shaking, stirring, vortexing, heating, percolation, sonication, and microwave irradiation) with regard to comparability and repeatability. Leachate concentrations of summaric parameters, metals, and anions were determined. After a leaching period of only 5 min, most of the experiments gave results representing 50% or more of the corresponding DIN results. The bestsuited methods achieving more than 85% recovery for all analytical parameters were either ultrasonic agitation or vortexing, depending on the sample. With regard to repeatability, vortexing was the most precise method comparable to the DIN procedure. An ultrasonic-accelerated leaching method that has regularly been applied at a special waste disposal facility for rapid waste identification was then systematically compared to the DIN standard procedure. Recoveries within were 60-85% com-20 min pared to concentrations in DIN leachates. The average precision of the accelerated method was found to be 8% and the precision of the standard method was 5%.