- Author
- Solyom, P.
- Title
- Treatment of Discarded Fire Fighting Foam Premixes.
- Coporate
- SP Swedish National Testing and Research Institute, Boras, Sweden
- Report
- A22049; Project 704-011, March 7, 2002, 11 p.
- Keywords
- foam extinguishing systems | fire fighting | hazardous materials | waste disposal | chemical properties
- Identifiers
- biochemical properties; ecotoxicological properties of permeates; Reversed Osmosis (RO) filtration
- Abstract
- Discarded premixes of various fire extinguishing foam products are considered as hazardous waste and are treated as such by the means of evaporation and incineration. The premixes contain a considerable share of water, between 94 and 97 per cent and the destruction is expensive (6000 to 7000 SEK per m3 or roughly 600 to 700 euro). The RO treatment of is an effective method for minimising the volumes to at least 14 per cent of the original volume. However, some components of the premixes pass the RO membrane and the concentrate is therefore unsuitable for reuse as fire extinguishing foam material. The chemical and treatability properties of the permeates from the RO treatment of various foam extinguishing products exhibit that the permeates are amenable to discharge and treatment in municipal treatment plants. Fluorinated surfactants and compounds in certain foam extinguishing products are retarded to a great extent by the RO treatment, but trace concentrations are present in the permeates. As some of the fluoro compounds belong to a group of highly persistent bioaccuniulating chemicals, the discharge of RO permeates from these products is not recommended also the concentrations are extremely low. Similar pollution circumstances are apparent at fire fighting training centres where foam products are used and at real fire fighting situations with or without the use of foam products. The capital cost of the investment for RO equipment with a capacity of 10m3 per week amounts to about 200 000 SEK. The operating costs, including energy requirement, replacement of membrane and disposal of concentrate, depend on the treated volume. The operational costs are dominated by the cost of the waste disposal. Run-offwaters from these situations contain beside the foam products also contaminants from the fire itself. None of these run-off waters were investigated in the present work, but the similarity of contamination suggests that RO-treatment is a suitable method to reduce contamination from fires. .. A mobile RO-equipment mounted on a truck would be a suitable solution for solving the pollution problems even from these areas.