Emerging Technology Report: Reclamation of Lead from Superfund Waste Material Using Secondary Lead Smelters

There are over 3,000 sites across the United States contaminated wtth lead. Techniques to remediate these sites include standard stabilization/disposal technologies, reclamation of lead using secondary lead smelters, soil washing, and biological removal technologies. Through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Reduction Engineering B secondary Laboratory, the Center for Hazardous Materials Research CHMR), in conjunction with a major lead smelter, has demonstrated that secondary lead smelters may be used economically to reclaim lead from a wide range of lead-containing materials frequently found at Superfund sites. Such materials include battery case materials, lead dross, and other debris containing between 3 and 70 percent During the study, CHMR and the smelter reclaimed lead from five sets of materials, including two Superfund sites containing lead-containing materials. primarily battery cases, and one battery breaker/smelter site with a variety of Between 4 and 1600 tons of materials from each of these sites were excavated and processed at the smelter, while the research team assessed the effects on furnace operation and performance. Two additional sets of materials, one from the demolition of a house containing lead-based paint, and the other consisting of blasting abrasive material from work on a bridge coated with lead paint, were also processed in the smelter. The results showed that it was technically feasible to use the secondary ead smelter to reclaim lead from all of the materials. CHMR considered the use of materials from a sixth site, which contained approximately 80% soil and 20% waste battery cases. The site was dropped from consideration for the study, because the smelter could not accept materials with such a high soils concentration CHMR also assessed the economics of using secondary lead smelters to reclaim lead from Superfund sites, and developed a method for estimating the cost of reclaiming lead. This method develops cost as a function of material excavation, transportation and processing costs combined with cost benefits received by the smelter (in the form of recovered lead, reduced fuel usage and/or reduced iron usage). The total remediation costs using secondary lead smelters for the sites and materials studied varied between $35 and $374 per ton, based on January 1994 market prices for lead. The costs were primarily a function of lead concentration, the market price for lead, distance from the smelter, and the amount of materials which become incorporated into slag from the process, although other factors affected the economics as well. Materials with high concentrations of lead were significantly less expensive to remediate than those with bw concentrations. The cost to remediate materials which left few slag residues in the furnace was lower than the cost to remediate materials which contained a significant amount of material that remained in the slag.