The Leachate of Lead from the Crucibles Undergone Ruby Heat Treatment with Lead Glass Additive

Heat treatment with lead glass additive is developed to improve the quality of rubies. The alumina crucibles which were used as containers are not subjected to the hazardous waste laws. Therefore, this research constituted a study to characterize and determines lead contents in the leachate from these crucibles by two methods, the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) and synthetic precipitation leaching procedure (SPLP) as simulation of leaching conditions of landfill and acid rain, respectively. Discarded crucibles from 6 factories gives lead concentrations ranging from 0.58 to 335.73 (TCLP) and 0.35 to 312.17 mg /l (SPLP), with a positive correlation between them. For the pH values, the leachates by TCLP seem to be constant at 5.00-5.17 while those by SPLP seem to be fluctuated, ranging from 6.64 to 9.73. The increasing in pH value doses not correspond with the increasing in lead concentration level.