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Assessment of leaching behavior and human bioaccessibility of rare earth elements in typical hospital waste incineration ash in China

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Abstract

Leaching behavior and gastrointestinal bioaccessibility of rare earth elements (REEs) from hospital waste incineration (HWI) fly and bottom ash samples collected from Beijing and Nanjing Cities were assessed. In the same ash sample, the leaching concentrations of individual REEs determined by the Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) were higher than those detected by the European standard protocol (EN-type test), thereby suggesting that the low pH value of leaching solution was an important factor influencing the leachability of REE. The REE bioaccessibility results, which were evaluated using the physiologically based extraction test (PBET), indicated that REEs were highly absorbed during gastric phase by dissolution; and subsequently precipitated and/or re-adsorbed in small intestinal phase. The relative amounts of the total REEs extracted by the TCLP method, EN-type test and PBET test were compared. In addition to the pH value of extraction solutions, the chelating role of REEs with organic ligands used in the PBET method was also an important parameter affecting REE adsorption in human body. Additionally, this study showed that REEs were extracted by these methods as concomitants of heavy metals and anions (NO3 –, F–, SO4 2–, and Cl–) from HWI ash, which probably caused the remarkably complex toxicity on human body by the exposure pathway.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge all of the participators who collected HWI ash samples for this study from both the Beijing and Nanjing sites. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51378180), the Technology Department of the Henan Science and Technology Fund Project (Nos. 142102210457 and 142102210456), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 30916014102).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Henan Key Laboratory for Environmental Pollution Control and Key Laboratory for Yellow River and Huai River Water Environment and Pollution Control, Ministry of Education, School of Environment, Henan Normal University, Xinxiang, 453007, China

    Chunfeng Wang, Guanfei Chen, Yanchen Zhu, Dan Yao & Wanfeng Wang

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Chemical Pollution Control and Resources Reuse, School of Environmental and Biological Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China

    Lianjun Wang

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  1. Chunfeng Wang
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  2. Guanfei Chen
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  3. Yanchen Zhu
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  5. Wanfeng Wang
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Correspondence to Chunfeng Wang or Lianjun Wang.

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Wang, C., Chen, G., Zhu, Y. et al. Assessment of leaching behavior and human bioaccessibility of rare earth elements in typical hospital waste incineration ash in China. Front. Environ. Sci. Eng. 11, 5 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-017-0946-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11783-017-0946-2

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