Cleanup of Dental Amalgam Waste To Meet Sewer Regulation

Description:

In the United States and abroad, there has been a great deal of concern by the public and health officials over the detrimental health effects caused by bioaccumulation of mercury in lakes and streams, resulting in regulatory limits for a variety of sources. Dental amalgam waste is attracting substantial attention as a major contributor to the mercury burden of municipal water treatment plants. In response, local authorities are implementing ordinances requiring dental offices to recover waste dental amalgam. Conventional technologies for removing waste amalgam from operatory discharge water have proven insufficient to meet stringent discharge limits (typically 50 pg/L). In some cases, dental clinics have been forced to disconnect from the sewer systems and have incurred expensive hazardous waste disposal charges. ADA Technologies proposes to develop and test a novel system to reduce mercury below 50 pg/L that will be comprised of a patented novel sorbent for removing dissolved mercury, membrane filtration technology for removing fine amalgam particles, and conventional technology for recovering the large amalgam particles. The ADA sorbent has demonstrated the ability to remove ionic and elemental mercury from wastewater to levels below 1 g/L. This system will be available to thousands of commercial dental offices.