Mechanical Pretreatment of Municipal Waste Incineration Ash for Recovering Heavy Metals by the Horizontal Gyration Method

Segregation of binary particle systems in a horizontally gyrated bed has been experimentally studied to recover the heavy metals from municipal waste incineration (MWI) ash. Differences in density and size had less effect on segregation. Effective segregation took place under the centrifugal effect of 1 or less for any particle size ratio. Zn, Cu and Pb were concentrated in the upper side of bed by the horizontal vibration. However, there was less change in concentration for other metals such as Mg, Al and Fe etc. The separation system with the horizontal gyrating separator proved to be an effective method for the pretreatment of recovering Zn, Cu and Pb from incineration residues.