Effectiveness of Charcoal Adsorbent in Flue Gas Filters for PCB Reduction in Smoke from Hospital Incinerators

The release of gas-phase polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as one the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) is an unfortunate result combustion, especially from medical waste incinerators. This tends to make incinerators unpopular. idea a cheaply available air pollution control device fitted incinerator chimneys can justify continued use A gas filter unit, consisting 3 beds with activated charcoal adsorbent, was designed, constructed, and onto existing at university hospital in Ghana. Flue sampled before after beds, using cylindrically-shaped mini-polyurethane foam (mini-PUF) samplers, analytes samples were then Soxhlet-extracted, purified, analyzed for certain PCBs chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) technique. Twelve 14 indicators smoke present, 11 them saw mean reductions ranging 3.67% 54.9% by beds. These PCB 18, 28, 31, 44, 101, 118, 138, PCB149, 153, 170, PCB180. gaseous concentrations filtration ranged 0.0000788 ng/m3 180 0.00129 153. After they 0.00003734 170 0.00112016 highest reduction came homologue, 180, whilst homologue dioxin-like character (PCB 118) 22.44% reduction. suggests that dioxins other compounds are most likely adsorbed adsorbent. unit should further be investigated its effectiveness removing PCBs, dioxins, furanes testing thermophilic bacterial strains metabolize these POPs into less harmful products.