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U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Transient suppression packaging for reduced emissions from rotary-kiln incinerators

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:5269957

The paper discusses experiments, on a 73 kW roray kiln incinerator simulator, to determine the effect of innovative waste packaging designs on transient emissions of products of incomplete combustion (PICs) due to batch-charging of containerized liquid surrogate waste compounds bound on ground corncob sorbent. When containers of waste are batch-charged into rotary kilns, the rupture of the containers as often followed by a very rapid evolution of the volatile compounds contained therein. This flash vaporization/pyrolysis can result in local depletion of available O2, as supplied from the primary burner. This can lead to a transient puff of partially combusted organic material that can pass through the primary combustion chamber and, possibly, even through the secondary combustion chamber and/or downstream pollution control equipment. This phenomenon frequently leads to feed rate limitations based on the volatility or heat of combustion of organic liquids inside the containers. EPA's AEERL has developed a prototype container system designed to partition the waste/sorbent mixture within the containers that are fed into the rotary kiln. By compartmentalizing the waste, the release of volatile compounds is delayed over a longer time than when charging single-chambered containers. Thus, the local depletion of O2 occurs to a lesser degree, resulting in an overall smaller transient puff.

Research Organization:
Arizona Univ., Tucson, AZ (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering
OSTI ID:
5269957
Report Number(s):
PB-91-223248/XAB; CNN: EPA-68-02-4701
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English