Validation and Characterization of Persistent Organic Pollutant Emissions from Stack Flue Gases of an Electric Arc Furnace by Using a Long-Term Sampling

A long-term sampling system, called the Adsorption Method for Sampling of Dioxins and Furans (AMESA), was used for long-term sampling (up to 168 hours) of an electric arc furnace (EAF) to obtain the representative flue gas samples. In order to have a comprehensive view of the emissions of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from EAFs, six POPs, including polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polychlorinated diphenyl ethers (PCDEs), polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PBDD/Fs), polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), were investigated. Tests showed the breakthroughs of PBDD/Fs and PBDEs are much larger (8.9%–43%), while the others are less than 3%. A significant increase in breakthrough with the increase in halogen numbers is observed, because highly halogen-substituted POPs tend to partition to the particulate-phase. Except for PCBs and PCDEs, whose percentages of the POPs in the rinses to the total POPs collected from the long-term samples (cartridges + rinses) are less than 7%, those of the other POPs are all greater than 30%. Therefore, the solvents from the rinses of the sampling probe and other components need to be combined with an XAD-2 cartridge for analyses. The PCBs and PBDEs are the most abundant pollutants in the stack flue gases of the EAF, and their mass concentrations ar