Effect of CaO and montmorillonite additive on heavy metals behavior and environmental risk during sludge combustion
Abstract
Serious pollution is caused by heavy metals (HMs) emission during sludge combustion treatment, but the addition of minerals has the ability to alleviate the migration of HMs to the gaseous state. In this study, HMs (As, Cr, Zn and Cu) behavior, speciation, and environmental risk during sludge combustion with CaO and montmorillonite (MMT) additive was investigated in the lab-scale tube furnace. The results showed that the sludge combustion was mainly determined by volatile matter. In general, CaO inhibited the volatilization of Cr, Zn, and Cu, but promoted As volatilization. MMT inhibited the volatilization of HMs, but the effect was not obvious at high temperatures. Besides, the improvement of retention effect was not found for Cr and Cu with the increase of CaO at 1000 °C, there might exist threshold value for CaO on HMs retention process. Meanwhile, CaO increased acid-soluble fraction of As significantly at high temperatures, decreased residual fraction of Cr by oxidation, converted Zn and Cu to residual fraction. MMT increased the acid-soluble fraction of As and residual fraction of Cr. In view of the HMs environmental risk in ash, the combustion temperature of sludge was necessary to control under 1000 °C and minerals additive amount was needed to manage above 1000 °C.
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Thermochemical transformation concentrates metal(loid)s in processed ash, but at high incineration temperatures vaporization of heavy metals increases, trapping metals in flue gas and fly ash; additives such as kaolinite, zeolite, and montmorillonite can reduce metal entry into fly ash and increase recovery in bottom ash.
“The thermochemical transformation of biomass also helps concentrate metal(loid)s in processed ash due to dewatering and bulk reduction, making safe disposal by landfilling or metal(loid) recovery much more efficient.”
From Sustainable management of post-phytoremediation biomass (2025) · cites this paper as Zhang et al. 2022c
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Leng, L., Yuan, X., Huang, H., Jiang, H., Chen, X., & Zeng, G. (2014) · Bioresource Technology · doi:10.1016/j.biortech.2014.05.119 · Cited by 147 · see citing works
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Sustainable management of post-phytoremediation biomass
Mukherjee, S., Leri, A. C., Bandaranayaka, C., Vázquez-Núñez, E., Barros, R., Khan, A. H. A., Zhou, P., Zhang, T., Bernal, M. P., Clemente, R., et al. (2025) · Energy, Ecology and Environment · doi:10.1007/s40974-025-00364-w · Cited by 45 · see citing works
“The bioavailability of pollutants is a key factor influ-encing their removal from soil by plants (Petruzzelli et al. 2015; Wang et al. 2023d; Zhang et al. 2022b).”
- Authors
- Zhang, Z., Huang, Y., Zhu, Z., Yu, M., Gu, L., Wang, X., Liu, Y., & Wang, R.
- Affiliations
- Southeast University (CN)
- Baosteel (China) (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Huang, Yaji
- Venue
- Environmental Pollution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2022-11
- Volume
- 312
- Pages
- 120024
- ISSN
- 0269-7491 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4293113621
- Cited by
- 34
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 3.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Environmental Pollution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFC1906803)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Recycling and utilization of industrial and municipal waste in materials production
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geochemistry and Petrology › Coal and Its By-products
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Heavy metals in environment
- Keywords
- sewage sludge incineration, heavy metal volatilization, CaO additive, heavy metal speciation, arsenic, chromium, zinc, copper, heavy metal retention, environmental risk, combustion temperature, supplementary cementitious materials
- MeSH terms
- Bentonite, Environmental Pollution, Sewage, Metals, Heavy
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