The University of Colorado-Boulder (UCB) has been treating lab-generated hazardous waste by using a novel treatment system developed by the Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) staff since 2012. This system was developed by a team at UCB and uses an organic ligand-associated activated carbon (now produced by a UCB technology transfer office-mediated co-venture) to remove metals from liquid waste to enable disposal to the municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). UCB has a Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facility (TSDF) located on campus that is licensed and capable of treating hazardous wastes. The UCB campus produces over 50 tons of hazardous waste annually costing ~$100,000 in off-campus expenses. Anything that contains a regulated chemical or compound (e.g., acids, solvents, metal solutions) is collected and classified as hazardous waste and assigned one of ~50 waste ID codes. The ligand-associated carbon is used to treat metal-laden acidic wastes. 1000 L batches of approved waste are combined in a large vessel and the pH is raised to 5.1-5.3 with sodium hydroxide. A sample is then measured for the concentration of a suite of metals of interest to the Boulder WWTP operators (e.g., As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb, Hg, Mo, Ni, Se, Ag, Zn) by ICP-MS. The liquid is pumped through a particulate filter and a series of three 1.5 kg columns filled with the ligand-associated activated carbon. The effluent is then measured for metals by an EPA-certified 3rd party lab to ensure all concentrations of metals of concern are below allowable levels before disposal to the WWTP. We will present (1) an overview of the technology and system components (Dittrich, 2012), (2) a discussion of the sorption mechanisms (Dittrich and Reimus, 2015), and (3) a cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of the current system. This system at UCB enables the treatment specialists to safely collect, organize, treat, and dispose of the hazardous waste generated on campus more economically than with the traditional disposal method. Dittrich, T.M., Reimus, P.W. 2015. Uranium transport in a crushed granodiorite: Experiments and reactive transport modeling. J Contam Hydrol 175-176, 44-59. Dittrich, T.M. 2012. Collaboration between environmental water chemistry students and hazardous waste treatment specialists on the University of Colorado-Boulder Campus. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts. Vol 1, p. 0932, Abstract ED53C-0932. Presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.

Ligand-associated activated carbon system for the treatment of hazardous waste from research laboratories

251st National Meeting (2016)

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