The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Regulations, 40 CFR 266 , require that boilers, cement kilns, and other industrial furnaces utilizing waste-derived fuel adhere to specific guidelines in assessing potential metals emissions. A common approach for estimating potential emissions is performing total metals analysis on all feedstream materials. This practice describes a multi-stage microwave-assisted digestion procedure that solubilizes trace elements for spectroscopic analyses.

1.1 This practice describes the multi-stage microwave digestion of typical industrial furnace feedstream materials using nitric, hydrofluoric, hydrochloric, and boric acids for the subsequent determination of trace metals.

1.2 This practice has been used successfully on samples of coal, coke, cement raw feed materials, and waste-derived fuels composed primarily of waste paint-related material in preparation for measuring the following trace elements: Ag, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Cr, Hg, Pb, Sb, and Tl. This practice may be applicable to elements not previously listed.

1.3 This practice is also effective for other waste materials (for example, flyash, foundry sand, alum process residue, cement kiln dust, etc.).

1.4 The values stated in SI units are to be regarded as standard. No other units of measurement are included in this standard.

1.5 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use. Specific hazard statements are given in Section 7.