The polychlorinated dibenzofuran fingerprint of iron ore sinter plant: Its persistence with suppressant and alternative fuel addition.

An earlier demonstration that the relative concentrations of isomers of polychlorinated dibenzofuran do not vary as the flamefront of an iron ore sinter plant progresses through the bed, and profiles are similar for two sinter strands has been widened to include studies of the similarity or otherwise between full scale strand and sinter pot profiles, effect of addition of suppressants and of coke fuel substitution with other combustible materials. For dioxin suppressant addition, a study of the whole of the tetra- penta- and hexaCDF isomer range as separated by the DB5MS chromatography column, indicates no significant change in profile: examination of the ratios of the targeted penta- and hexaCDF isomers suggests the profile is similarly unaffected by coke fuel replacement. Addition of KCl at varied levels has also been shown to have no effect on the 'fingerprint' and there is no indication of any effect by the composition of the sinter mix. The recently published full elution sequence for the DB5MS column is applied to the results obtained using this column. It is confirmed that isomers with 1,9-substitution of chlorine atoms are invariably formed in low concentrations. This is consistent with strong interaction between the 1 and 9 substituted chlorine atoms predicted by DFT thermodynamic calculations. Non-1,9-substituted PCDF equilibrium isomer distributions based on DFT-derived thermodynamic data differ considerably from stack gas distributions obtained using SP2331 column separation. A brief preliminary study indicates the same conclusions (apart from the 1,9-interaction effect) hold for the much smaller content of PCDD.

Removal of vapour phase PCDD/Fs in electric arc furnace steelmaking emissions by sorption using plastics.

Plastics are potentially suitable for the removal of vapour phase PCDD/Fs in emissions from the electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking process. Three different commercial plastics, i.e. polypropylene BE170MO (Borealis A/S, Denmark), polypropylene in the form of 5 mm spheres (The Precision Plastic Ball Co. Ltd., UK) and polyethylene LD605BA (ExxonMobil Chemical, Belgium), have been studied using a novel experimental apparatus for the removal of vapour phase PCDD/Fs. Polypropylene BE170MO was identified to be the most suitable product amongst the three plastics in terms of PCDD/F sorption and potential industrial application. The optimum temperature for PCDD/F sorption on polypropylene BE170MO was below 90 degrees C for a removal efficiency of >99% at an average vapour phase PCDD/F concentration of 3.5 ng I-TEQ/Nm(3). At 130 degrees C, 53% of the PCDD/Fs trapped on polypropylene BE170MO were desorbed.

A group additivity algorithm for polychlorinated dibenzofurans derived from selected DFT analyses.

The difficulty in measuring the heats of combustion of polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDFs) has resulted in a shortage of data on their heats of formation, required for the purpose of developing an understanding of the role of thermodynamics and kinetics in their production via industrial processes. B3LYP density functional theory calculations have been carried out on a number of PCDFs using 6-31G(d) and 6-311+G(3df,p) basis sets to estimate their heats of formation based on the known experimental values for dibenzofuran, benzene and chlorobenzene. By examining the interactions among chlorine substituents, it is shown that energy contributions arising from successive chlorination can be interpreted in a predictable way, based on a small number of key energy parameters associated with ring position and chlorine atom repulsions. These parameters have been presented as the basis for a simplified prediction algorithm, which can be used to reproduce the predicted DFT heat of formation to within a few kJ/mol, avoiding the need to carry out extensive DFT calculations on the possible 135 isomers of the dibenzofuran group.