The bottom ash is increasingly used as a substitute aggregate material in road construction in China, and road salting is the major salt source in groundwater. Continuous rainfall releases soluble salts from the bottom ash subgrade into the surrounding soil and groundwater, resulting in potential hazards. Different methods were employed to simulate and collect runoff water during rainfall events, including batch leaching test, dynamic leaching test and constant head test, to assess environmental impact of bottom ash as road basement materials under continuous rainfall conditions. This study simulated the seepage of bottom ash backfill roads under different rainfall intensities, rainfall times, and rainfall pH values. A comprehensive sampling and laboratory testing program was undertaken to characterize the environmental impact of soluble salts from bottom ash. The obtained results reveal that the leaching concentrations of Cl⁻ and SO₄²⁻ exceed the limit specified in the class V standard of surface water, which are 2.06–2.17 times and 1.08–1.25 times, respectively. By examining the long-term environmental influence under the condition of continuous rainfall, the leaching of Cl⁻ mainly occurs in the early leaching stage, and the maximum leaching concentration reaches 19,700 mg/L. The release concentration of Cl⁻ begins to be lower than the class V standard of surface water when continuous rainfall approaches the total rainfall for 13 months. The cumulative release of Cl⁻ in the bottom ash is 2.8–5.4 mg/g. Both rainfall intensity and rain pH affect the release of Cl⁻. The obtained results derived from the constant head tests indicate that stagnant water caused by rainfall deteriorates the release of soluble salt into the groundwater in only 1 day, especially at the early stage of 12 h. This work provides some basic information about how to minimize damage to the surrounding environment caused by the leaching of salt in bottom ash.

One of the main challenges of bottom ash reutilization is heavy metal and salts' leaching potential. The effect of wet treatment on chemical composition and leaching toxicity of bottom ash were investigated in this study to mitigate this leaching potential. Batch leaching and column leaching tests were first conducted to investigate the leaching behavior of the targeted elements (Cu, Zn, Ni, Cl-, and SO42-) from raw bottom ash and treated bottom ash after wet treatment. X-ray fluorescence analysis was used to analyze the chemical composition of bottom ash, and sequential extraction procedure (SEP) operation was done to analyze the chemical species of the heavy metals of bottom ash. The obtained results showed that the wet treatment applied on raw bottom ash posed a slight influence on the concentration of most of the major elements, 5.57-18.18%. SEP results showed the acid extractable Zn that accounted for 22.4-24.5% of the total Zn, and the iron manganese oxide bound Ni was 25.2-28.4%, and the organic matter bound Cu was 21.4-31.7%. The wet treatment reduced the concentrations and leachable amount of the targeted pollutants, which could decrease the leaching concentration of Cu by 77.1%, Zn by 34.7%, Ni by 100%, Cl by 30.1%, and SO42- by 51.4% based on the batch leaching tests under acid condition. The column leaching tests also suggest that wet treatment decreases Cu, Zn, and Cl- leaching concentration in bottom ash. This indicates that wet treatment improves the suitability of municipal solid waste incineration bottom ash for reutilization in China.