engleski

The Significance of Metallurgical Processes in the Town of Sisak for the Total Environmental Pollution by Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-Dioxins and Polychlorinated Dibenzofurans

Among metallurgical facilities in general, the biggest polluters are coking plants, agglomeration and iron ore sintering plants, thermal power plants, blast furnaces, and steel mills, whereas the processing plants are considered minor polluters. Metallurgical plants with their emission registers include dust, SO2, NOx, NH3, H2SO4, HCl, HF, HCN, H2S, CO, CO2, CH4, heavy metals and organic pollutions such as benzene, phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, polychlorinated biphenil, polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans. Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/F) belong to the group of persistent organic pollutions and represent a major hazard for the living environment. The elementary characteristic of these compounds, apart from their resistance to photolitic, chemical, and biological decomposing, is their high toxicity, gene toxicity, and low water solubility. Due to the fact that PCDD/F accumulation in the natural environment poses a major hazard and for the purpose of preventing environment pollution with these compounds from various emitters, many countries have made an inventory of industrial sources and their emission to the environment in order to achieve better understanding of how individual sources participate in the total emission of PCDD/F and how to develop a strategy to reduce those emissions. In order to calculate the emission of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans from metallurgical processes in the town of Sisak, this research has built on experiences from developed countries, whereas the emission factor values from individual processes have been taken from the reference data and used for the estimate of the emission of these pollutions in the European countries. The calculation of the emission polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans from metallurgical processes in the Sisak Steelworks took into account annual output of sinter, pig iron, and steel. Between 1990 and 2000 the annual calculated emission values of these compounds from the metallurgical processes in Sisak accounted for the shares ranging from ~20 to ~39 % of their total emissions from all metallurgical processes in Croatia. Within the observed timeframe (1950-2005) the town of Sisak did not experience any excessive air pollution by polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans from the local metallurgical processes. It should be dully noted here that the metallurgical processes (especially sintering) were probably the biggest but not the only source of emission of these compounds in and around Sisak.

dioxin; furan; emission; metallurgical processes

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