Metal recovery from power plant ash: An ecological approach to coal utilization

The growing use of coal in electrical generation is resulting in power plant solid waste becoming a serious national problem. For 1977, approximately 62 million tonnes of utility ash was produced in the US. If oil and gas burning units that were originally designed to burn coal switch back to that fuel, utility ash will be the fourth largest solid material produced in the US. Disposing of such quantities of wastes poses siting and pollution problems which are becoming critical in areas experiencing increased land use competition.An alternative to disposal is to recover the constituent metals of the ash. Aluminium, iron, manganese, calcium, titanium, and magnesium are all present in fly ash, the utility waste that poses the major disposal problem. This paper indicates that metal recovery is an attractive alternative if national instead of special interest goals are maximized. Metal recovery from fly ash is attractive on environmental, self-sufficiency, and stragegic grounds although it may not be a wise decision for an individual entrepreneur. The geography of power plant location within the US is increasing the economical attractiveness of this potential resource since large, new facilities produce sufficient quantities of material that can be used in nearby metal smelters.