At the southeastern part of Sweden, old art and crystal waste glass has been identified as a hazardous waste due to high weight concentrations of Pb (32.398%), Cd (0.085%), and As (1.976%). The reduction-melting technique was used to investigate the extraction of these trace elements from powder waste glass of particle size < 1 mm. Following a factorial design technique, the experimental results of the reduction-melting method showed that 99.9% of Pb, 100% of Cd, and 99% of As could be extracted. For a batch of 10 g powder waste glass, the found experimental and theoretical optimum operating conditions were 1100 °C of melting temperature, 5 g of Na2CO3, 2 g of carbon, and 120 min of melting time. The reduction-melting method displayed promising results which might help in recycling the extracted trace elements and glass compared to the current used solution of landfilling as hazardous wastes.
Keywords: Crystal glass; Extraction of trace elements; Glass melting; Hazardous glass waste; Old glassworks dumps; Reduction-melting method.