EPA Research Partner Support Story: Evaluating PFAS Emissions from Waste Incineration
Partners: Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FL DEP), Utah Department of Environmental Quality
Challenge: Evaluating per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) emissions from waste incineration
Resource: PFAS air emissions investigations, in collaboration with Reworld (formerly Covanta) and Clean Harbors
Project Period: 2024 – Present
Incineration is commonly used to destroy wastes, yet it is not well known how operations from either municipal waste-to-energy (WTE) operations or hazardous waste incinerators (HWI) affect PFAS compounds contained in that waste. Due to rising health concerns associated with PFAS, it is important to understand if they are destroyed or merely spread into the environment when incinerated.
"Clean Harbors conducted multiple PFAS performance stack tests at the Aragonite incinerator in Tooele, Utah, with the EPA providing oversight for the most recent testing in November 2024. This collaborative effort will help determine operating conditions for PFAS destruction." - Utah Department of Environmental Quality Division of Waste Management and Radiation Control Assistant Director Stevie Norcross
Reworld, a company running WTEs around the country, and Clean Harbors, a company with several HWIs, contacted EPA ORD about studying PFAS air emissions at their facilities. ORD set up cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) with each company and worked to develop test plans to comprehensively evaluate solid, liquid, and gas-phase emissions, and to determine levels of PFAS emissions and destruction.
Researchers tested the WTE facility before and after emissions passed through the pollution control system to look for PFAS, volatile fluorinated compounds, and other fluorinated compounds. Since the influent waste feed could not be characterized, hexafluoroethane and tetrafluoromethane were injected as indicator gases to calculate their destruction efficiency and help evaluate the incinerators performance. Preliminary results show promise for the effectiveness of incineration to destroy PFAS – initial results showed that the WTE incinerator produced very low emissions of PFAS and seems to more effectively destroy PFAS than expected. The final data are currently being evaluated and summarized for publication.
The HWI test measured PFAS, volatile fluorinated compounds, and other fluorinated compounds at the stack of the incinerator. Researchers added known amounts of PFAS and aqueous film forming foam (a PFAS-containing product used to extinguish fires) to evaluate their destruction, including evidence of PFAS components suggesting incomplete destruction. Hexafluoroethane was also added as an indicator gas to evaluate the incinerators performance. The preliminary results show that the HWI that was tested can destroy most PFAS and emit very low levels into the atmosphere. The results are under review and will be published in a public EPA report.
Together these tests will provide valuable real-world data about the PFAS emissions from incinerators. They will also help researchers evaluate the use of hexafluoroethane and tetrafluoromethane to indicate incinerator performance.