This research was performed to evaluate heavy metal leaching characteristics of the sludge from paper mill process with sintering temperature. Heavy metal leaching of the sludge was characterized with Korean Leaching Test and Toxicity Characteristic Leaching Procedure. The test sludge was composed of 70.72% of moisture, 9.5% of volatile solids and 9.76% of fixed solids. As a result of XRF analysis, Fe was the highest inorganic element in approximately 83%, which implies the recycling possibility of the sludge in reuse of Fenton chemicals and artificial lightweight aggregate. Leaching of heavy metals from sintered sludge was lower than the dry ones. However, there was no significant difference in leaching characteristics between the sludges sintered at 350℃ and 650℃. Zn and Fe were leached more greatly in TCLP and KLT methods respectively.

Efforts were made to determine the activation energy and the reaction order by adopting Kissinger and Flynn-Wall-Ozawa analysis methods. All the data were acquired from TGA thermograms for the mixed fuels with different temperature heating rates. It could be known that both the coal and the mixed fuels decomposed thermally at temperature ranges of 300～700℃. The temperature at the maximum reaction rate, Tp, could be determined by DTG method, which could be obtained by differentiation of TGA thermogram. Kissinger analysis showed the linear relationship with experimental data, showing the activation energy of 319.64 ±4 kJ/mol. From Flynn-Wall-Ozawa analysis, it was shown that the activation energies and the reaction orders did not undergo any significant changes with both the conversions and the heating rates. It was considered from this facts that the combustion mechanism of the mixed fuels could not be affected by the extent of conversion and heating rate. In the present study, the activation energies showed different values according to the different analysis methods. The difference might be originated from the inconsistency of the mathematical data treatment method. In other words, while the activation energies obtained from the Kissinger method indicated the average values for overall reaction, that from Flynn-Wall-Ozawa method showed the average values for the each conversion around Tp.