Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland.
Nat Nanotechnol. 2012 Aug;7(8):520-4. doi: 10.1038/nnano.2012.64. Epub 2012 May 20.
More than 100 million tonnes of municipal solid waste are incinerated worldwide every year. However, little is known about the fate of nanomaterials during incineration, even though the presence of engineered nanoparticles in waste is expected to grow. Here, we show that cerium oxide nanoparticles introduced into a full-scale waste incineration plant bind loosely to solid residues from the combustion process and can be efficiently removed from flue gas using current filter technology. The nanoparticles were introduced either directly onto the waste before incineration or into the gas stream exiting the furnace of an incinerator that processes 200,000 tonnes of waste per year. Nanoparticles that attached to the surface of the solid residues did not become a fixed part of the residues and did not demonstrate any physical or chemical changes. Our observations show that although it is possible to incinerate waste without releasing nanoparticles into the atmosphere, the residues to which they bind eventually end up in landfills or recovered raw materials, confirming that there is a clear environmental need to develop degradable nanoparticles.
每年全球有超过 1 亿吨城市固体废物被焚烧。然而，尽管预计废物中的工程纳米颗粒的存在会增加，但人们对纳米材料在焚烧过程中的命运知之甚少。在这里，我们表明，在废物焚烧前直接引入的氧化铈纳米颗粒松散地结合在燃烧过程中的固体残留物上，并可以使用当前的过滤技术从烟道气中有效地去除。纳米颗粒要么直接在废物进入焚烧炉之前引入，要么在每年处理 20 万吨废物的焚烧炉的炉膛出口处引入。附着在固体残留物表面的纳米颗粒没有成为残留物的固定部分，也没有表现出任何物理或化学变化。我们的观察表明，虽然可以在不将纳米颗粒释放到大气中的情况下焚烧废物，但它们结合的残留物最终会进入垃圾填埋场或回收原材料，这证实了开发可降解纳米颗粒具有明显的环境需求。
