Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer

Regenerative Thermal Oxidizers (RTO) from Combustion Controls Solutions & Environmental Services Inc. provide efficiency and effective volatile organic compounds (VOCs), hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), and odorous emissions control for a wide range of processes.

Applications

A pioneer and recognized leader in thermal and catalytic oxidation and heat recovery systems for air pollution control, CCS&ES has applied the latest technology to the development of regenerative thermal oxidation systems. These systems are custom engineered to meet the requirement of each specific VOC emissions control application.

CCS&ES regenerative oxidation systems are the ideal solution for VOC control applications in which additional heat recovery above 80% is required because process exhaust flows cannot be reduced and VOC concentrations increased to levels at which CCS&ES’s recuperative thermal oxidation systems afford lower capital and comparable operating costs. Also, in many applications catalytic oxidizer systems are not suitable because of the possibility of catalyst deactivation.

The regenerative systems are ideally suited to handle very low solvent concentrations with exhaust flows up to 550,000 SCFM at lowest attainable operating costs.

Operation

A regenerative heat exchange cycle is used to alternately heat and cool relatively shallow beds of a special ceramic media.

VOC-containing process exhausts enter the system passing vertically through a heated ceramic bed (heat exchanger) which preheats them to almost final oxidation temperature. These preheated exhausts then enter a combustion chamber where they are further heated and retained at final oxidation temperature to achieve high destruction efficiency. The hot clean gases exiting this chamber pass through a second ceramic bed cooled in an earlier cycle. This bed absorbs most of the heat from the gases, cooling them before discharge to the atmosphere. A third ceramic bed/heat exchanger vessel is simultaneously being purged of any exhaust still contaminated with inlet VOC emissions, in order to insure high overall VOC destruction efficiencies for the system. The cycle is repeated, alternating between the three ceramic beds for heating, cooling, and purging operation. The quantity and configuration of the ceramic bed media are varied to provide for thermal energy recovery efficiencies of up to 97%. Additional heat exchanger vessels can be used to handle very high exhaust flow rates.

CCS&ES regenerative systems offer all of these benefits:

• Multiple heat exchanger vessels, each containing inlet and outlet damper systems for flow control.
• Vertical flow in heat exchangers for efficient operation, low maintenance, and minimum pressure drop.
• Tandem operating valves for stabilizing air flow and minimizing flow surges.
• Shallow ceramic media beds which minimize attrition of the ceramic heat transfer media.
• Special long-life ceramic fiber refractory insulation in heat exchanger vessels and combustion chamber which extends service capability of ceramic media, minimized start-up time, and reduces equipment weight.
• Static pressure control system and variable frequency fan drive to handle variations in process flow conditions.
• Programmable logic control to allow for variation in thermal efficiency of the system to handle changing process conditions.
• Unique purge feature to remove VOC contaminants from the media beds, thus providing high overall destruction efficiencies.
• Incineration temperature of up to 2,000°F or more.
• Applicable to both single and multiple emission sources.
• Compact design and modular construction.
• Single source project responsibility including installation and system startup.