The production and use of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have ceased and most developed countries
have disposed off their stocks long time ago. PCBs can however still be found in the environment and one
important source is accumulated stocks in developing countries. Sound treatment of PCB is costly and
most developing countries do not have dedicated hazardous waste incinerators or non-combustion technologies
available for domestic disposal and can usually not afford export.
High temperature cement kilns have been used to treat organic hazardous wastes in developed countries
for decades and shown to constitute a sound option if well managed and controlled. In contrast to
dedicated hazardous waste incinerators and other treatment techniques, cement kilns are already in
place in virtually every country and may constitute a treatment option. The objective of this study was
therefore to carry out the first test burn with PCB–oil in a developing country cement kiln and to assess
its feasibility and destruction performance.
The 3 d test burn demonstrated that the Sri Lankan cement kiln was able to destroy PCB in an irreversible
and environmental sound manner without causing any new formation of PCDD/PCDF or HCB. The
destruction and removal efficiency (DRE) was better than 99.9999% at the highest PCB feeding rate