Urban crematoria emissions as they stand with current practice.
Santarsiero et al., 2005
Microchemical Journal 79: 299-306Abstract
In order to assess the pollutant load attributable to crematoria, a study was undertaken on the emissions from cremators sited in urban areas. This paper reports some preliminary results from the testing program on an urban cremator emission as it stands with current cremation practices in Italy. Results concern the concentration of the following parameters at the stack: total particulate matter, metals (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb, Sb, Sn, Tl, V, Zn), organic micropollutants such as dioxins (PCDDs), dibenzofurans (PCDFs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
[selected conclusions ...]
- The cremator performance with regard to the emission of mercury was variable, ranging from around 0.003 to 0.300 mg/m3. This could pose some problems, inasmuch as the reference guideline emission limit is 0.05 mg/m3.
- Cremator performance with regard to the emissions of polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/F)s was quite constant, around 1 ng/m3 against the guideline emission limit of 0.1 ng/m3. Given the state of the art cremator studied, equipped with the flue gas cleaning system and charged with an input pollutant load as described above, the standard limit of 0.1 ng/m3 for PCDD+PCDF (dioxins and furans) is not achievable, taking into account also the fact that the discontinuity of the cremation process may affect the quantity of Dioxins we found, inasmuch as a representative sample may derive only from a continuous sampling carried out over 8 h.
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