Concentration and congener patterns of polychlorinated biphenyls in industrial and municipal waste incinerator flue gas, Korea

In the present study, individual PCB congeners were determined in the flue gases of 10 industrial and 5 municipal solid waste incinerators using HRGC/HRMS. The total PCBs concentration of all congeners (168 tetra to deca-chlorinated congeners) ranged from 26 to 343 ng/Nm3, and from 36 to 1095 ng/Nm3 in industrial waste incinerators (IWI) and municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWI), respectively. The total TEQ concentrations of PCBs, calculated using WHO-TEF values, varied from 0.001 to 0.55 ng-TEQ/Nm3 and from 0.001 to 8.29 ng-TEQ/Nm3 in the industrial waste incinerators and municipal solid waste incinerators, respectively. In all samples, the contribution of PCB 126 to total TEQ of PCBs was higher than 87%. The homologue pattern of PCBs in the incinerator flue gas samples was generally dominated by tetra- and penta-CBs. The distribution of other homologues was less than 15% in most of the incinerators. The fraction of co-PCBs against to total PCBs ranged from 1% to 19% and from 2% to 31% in IWI and MSWI flue gas samples. Results of the present study reveal that the presence of non-ortho PCB congeners in the flue gas originated form the combustion process.