Previous studies by us have shown that an effective general treatment for hazardous wastes is sorption of the waste onto a specially prepared, macroporous coal char followed by gasification of the mixture in reverse mode. In the present study, anindustrial waste comprised of styrene manufacturing and petroleum byproducts was gasified, and the waste, coal, virgin char, and char/waste mixture (before and after gasification) were examined by various instrumental methods, infrared, nuclear magneticresonance, gas chromatography, gas chromatography/ mass spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and ultimate and proximate analyses, to determine which methods give useful information. The composition of the waste was found to be 38 water, 27inorganic, and 35 organic. NMR showed that the organic components are a mixture of aliphatic and olefinic/aromatics. About 8 of the sludge is chromatographable and GC/MS revealed the presence of aromatics and polyaromatic hydrocarbons. Solidstate NMRshowed that the sludge components are strongly immobilized on the char up to a 1:1 (wt: wt) ratio. SEM results showed changes in the char macroporous surface as waste is incorporated by the char and as the mixture is subsequently gasified. In addition, aportion of the elemental content of the char surface was revealed by energy dispersive (EDAX) measurements. IR photoaccoustic showed that peaks attributable to aqueous fractions ofthe waste disappear upon gasification.
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