Validation and Characterization of Persistent Organic Pollutant Emissions from Stack Flue Gases of an Electric Arc Furnace by Using a Long-Term Sampling System (AMESA®)

A long-term sampling system, called the Adsorption Method for Sampling of Dioxins and Furans (AMESA), was used for long-term sampling (up to 168 hours) of an electric arc furnace (EAF) to obtain the representative flue gas samples. In order to have a comprehensive view of the emissions of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from EAFs, six POPs, including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (PCDEs), polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PBDD/Fs), polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), were investigated. Tests showed the breakthroughs of PBDD/Fs and PBDEs are much larger (8.9%-43%), while the others are less than 3%. A significant increase in breakthrough with the increase in halogen numbers is observed, because highly halogen-substituted POPs tend to partition to the particulate-phase. Except for PCBs and PCDEs, whose percentages of the POPs in the rinses to the total POPs collected from the long-term samples (cartridges + rinses) are less than 7%, those of the other POPs are all greater than 30%. Therefore, the solvents from the rinses of the sampling probe and other components need to be combined with an XAD-2 cartridge for analyses. The PCBs and PBDEs are the most abundant pollutants in the stack flue gases of the EAF, and their mass concentrations are one to three orders higher than those of the other POPs. With regard to POPs with dioxin-like toxicity, the percentages of the contributed toxicities by PCDD/Fs, PCBs and PBBD/Fs are 87.1%, 11.7% and 1.2%. The close association that PBDEs and PBDD/Fs have with the concentrations and congener profiles is not present for PCDEs and PCDD/Fs, suggesting the need for further studies of the formation mechanisms of these analogues.