Solidification and stabilization are well-known technologies used for treating hazardous waste. These technologies that use cementitious binder have been applied for decades as a final treatment procedure prior to the hazardous waste disposal. In the present work, hazardous waste like fly ash containing high concentrations of heavy metals such Zn (4715.56 mg/kg), Pb (1300.56 mg/kg), and Cu (534.72 mg/kg) and amounts of Ag, Cd, Co, Cr, Mn, and Ni was sampled from a city refuse incinerator facility. This fly ash was utilized in the solidification/stabilization of heavy metal sludge since fly ash has cement-like characteristics. Cement additives such as sodium sulfate, sodium carbonate, and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) was incorporated to the solidified matrix in order to determine its effect on the solidification/stabilization performance. The solidified matrix was cured for 7, 14, 21, and 28 days prior for its physical and chemical characterizations. The results show that the solidified matrix containing 40% fly ash and 60% cement with heavy metal sludge was the formulation that has the highest fly ash content with a satisfactory strength. The solidified matrix was also able to immobilize the heavy metals both found in the fly ash and sludge based on the toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) test. It also shows that the incorporation of sodium carbonate into the solidified matrix not only further improved the compressive strength from 0.36 MPa (without Na2CO3) to 0.54 MPa (with Na2CO3) but also increased its leaching resistance.
Keywords: Fly ash; Heavy metal sludge; Stabilization/solidification.