Novel surface-treatment for bottom ash from municipal solid waste incineration to reduce the heavy metals leachability for a sustainable environment

Unconventional treatments can provide a modification to convert ash waste into valuable materials that can be used in various applications. This study focuses on bottom ash (BA) collected from a local incineration plant and characterizes its chemical composition before and after pretreatment by coating with polymers. The toxicity-characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) was used to identify selected heavy metal leaching after treatment with vinyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) of different molecular weights. BA coatings were incorporated in two ratios, 0.5% and 1%, by milling to avoid heavy metal leaching. The results showed that all the coating batches had reduced concentrations of copper (Cu), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn), whereas the concentrations of chromium (Cr) and cadmium (Cd) showed higher amounts of BAV34 (0.5%) and BAV25 (1%). The treated BA with GP demonstrated percentages of reduction of 70%, 65%, 80%, 75%, 90%, and 80% for Cu, Mn, Ni, Zn, Pb, and Cd, respectively. The milling procedure reduced the particle size of the coated ash. Hydrophobicity was observed in all coating batches compared to untreated BA. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results showed variations between BA and treated BA, which confirmed that PDMS caused surface modification. These features have potential significance for extending the use of coated ash as a sustainable material for construction applications. •The leachability of heavy metal was investigated by Toxicity-characteristic leaching procedures (TCLP).•Coating by PDMS, and milling methods are a potential pretreatment for BA.•Surface modification impacted the hydrophobicity and the leachability of heavy metal.•The best coated formulation was indicated with GP and BV25 (1%) coatings.