Acid-base production potentials of ash-bearing samples from soma and yatagan power plants in Turkey

About 60% of the total energy production in Turkey comes from-power plants. Lignite has gained great importance for the coal-based power plants since 1970 and today the lignite based power plants have a production capacity of 20% of the total energy production in Turkey. The capacity of these plants, which use high ash containing low calorific value lignites, is currently about 6700 MW/h. Coal combustion power plants produce secondary products, mainly fly ashes, which contain highly toxic elements, and elimination procedures. When the fly ash contacts with water it produces ash slurry, which needs to be discharged from the plant to proper waste disposal site. A total ash deposit in this way has already reached around 100 billion tones in Turkey and is expected to increase rapidly in the near future due to the increasing energy need of the country. Considering the processes conducted plant operations, serious environmental impacts, emerging from the water-leached heavy metal pollution in the disposal areas are expected. In this study, acid production capacity and neutralization potential of the ash samples, supplied from SEAS. Soma and TEAS Yatagan Power Plants' electro-filters have been determined by using the static test procedures of BC Research Inc. (BCRI), Lapakko Neutralization Potential (LNP) and Neutralization Potential (EPA-Sobek)