A new reactor concept for hydrothermal oxidation

We developed a new apparatus dedicated to Supercritical Water Oxidation in order to overcome the two well-known problems of this process, which are corrosion and salt plugging. This reactor has both a double shell in titanium, which prevents corrosion, and a stirrer creating a turbulent flow, which prevents the sedimentation of inorganic compounds and enables better heat transfers. We first tested our reactor with easily oxidized effluents, i.e. pure organic compounds like PEG and dodecane. Then we oxidized two different kinds of effluent: one forming a corrosive phosphoric acid, and another one containing an inorganic salt in significant amount. We get conversion yields over 99.8% with organic and salt concentrations up to 6 and 4%, respectively, without production of chars or undesired gases like CO and CH4. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.