Determination of Total Chlorine in Derived or Secondary Fuels Using High-Temperature Combustion and Coulometric Titration Application Note · multi EA 4000

Introduction

Waste materials are becoming more and more important as valuable feed materials for energy production, as fuels and recycled feed materials for the chemical industry. To ensure a trouble-free processing and high quality of the final products, the exact elemental composition has to be determined. This is also crucial for avoiding the emission of undesired hazardous compounds.

In addition to heavy metals, carbon, hydrogen and sulfur, chlorine plays an important role. During processing, HCl can be formed and damage system components and contaminate costly catalysts. Under nonoptimal combustion conditions Cl compounds can influence the formation of extremely toxic dioxins. It’s therefore important to know the exact Cl content of the matrix being used.

Due to the versatile properties of these matrices (inhomogeneous, vigorously reacting, nonvolatile, solid, highly viscose etc.), it is very difficult to ensure a quantitative determination of a representative sample aliquote. That’s why classical methods, such as XRF, bomb method, etc., often fail or don’t deliver satisfying results. An alternative for overcoming these problems is elemental analysis — using high-temperature combustion of the sample followed by coulometric titration of the formed HCl.