This work includes two unrelated areas of research. The first portion of this work involved combusting densified refuse derived fuel (dRDF) with coal and studying the effect that Ca(0H)2 binder had on reducing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) emissions. The second area of work was directed at developing nondestructive infrared techniques in order to aid in the analysis of postage stamp adhesives. With Americans generating 150-200 million tons a year of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and disposing of nearly ninety percent of it in landfills, it is easy to understand why American landfills are approaching capacity. One alternative to landfilling is to process the MSW into RDF. There are technical and environmental problems associated with RDF. This work provides some answers concerning the amount of PAH and PCB emissions generated via the combustion of RDF with coal. It was found that the Ca(OH)2 binder greatly reduced both the PAH and the PCB emissions. In fact, PAH emissions at the ten-percent level were reduced more by using the binder than by the pollution control equipment. If the Ca(0H)2 binder can reduce not only PAH and PCB emissions, but also other noxious emissions, such as acid gases or dioxin, RDF technology could soon be the answer to the current landfill problems. The second portion of this work focused on developing a method to analyze stamp adhesives nondestructively. Using this method, it was fairly easy to differentiate among the three different types of adhesives that have been used by the United States Postal Service: gum arabic, dextrin, and polyvinyl alcohol. Differences caused by changes in chemicals added to the adhesives were also detected. Also, forgeries were detected with as much success, if not more, than by conventional methods. This work also led to the construction of equipment that allows large samples to be analyzed by reflectance infrared methods.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc331998 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Poslusny, Matthew |
| Contributors | Daugherty, Kenneth E., Thomas, Ruthanne D., Schwartz, Martin, Brady, William Thomas |
| Publisher | University of North Texas |
| Source Sets | University of North Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | ix, 156 leaves : ill., Text |
| Rights | Public, Poslusny, Matthew, Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. |
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