In this blog, we are going to discuss two projects executed by us for two different clients, both in the Middle East, but for identical equipment, viz. RTO (Regenerative Thermal Oxidiser).  This was for the treatment of process waste gas as per regulations prevalent in these countries.

When process waste gas containing VOCs and HAPs (volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants) are released to the atmosphere, these harmful emissions pose a serious hazard to the health of people working in the area and nearby and hence require thermal treatment as per the particular countries emission standards before being released to the environment.

In the first project, the customer inspected our works before commencement of production (and placement of order) and a second time after completion of work. On the first visit, he was satisfied with our infrastructure and capabilities and hence the order was placed. When he came for inspection the second time, he was further satisfied with the completed work, but suggested a few minor additions/modifications which we did. Eventually the RTO was shipped to the client’s country where our commissioning team subsequently went and completed the task.

Some of the key elements in this project were:

•                 The ceramic honeycomb structures which absorbed and released high heat within the chamber. This was a work of art, so to say, because in a ceramic block of 150 mm x 300 mm size, there were about 2500 tiny orifices, which is difficult to imagine, but done with great precision. The beds created by these blocks made the whole RTO system a self-sustaining one, because once the igniter starts firing, the VOCs/HAPs are ignited and transfer the heat to the beds as they pass them.

•                 The second element was the fast-acting butterfly valves which had to open/close within 1.5 seconds as per design requirements. We actually achieved less than 1 second, which was quite a task because the diameter of these valves were 700 mm with stainless steel MOC.

•                 The igniter. This was required to ignite the waste gas as it enters the chamber and is not required to fire continuously, unless the VOC content in the waste gas drops down drastically. This had to automatically sense and fire as per the VOC load in the gas. This was quite different from the monoblock burners that we were otherwise using.

•                 The control system with PLC and HMI make the whole equipment fully automatic, thereby requiring no contact with any of the equipment except the HMI screen.

The second project in the middle-east was more or less identical, only the flow rate of the gas was about 50% lesser. Everything else was the same and here again after inspection and despatch, our team completed the commissioning work at site. This project was won against international competition, whereas the first project was due to customer’s choice of the manufacturer.

In these cases the volume of the combustion chamber was between 50 to 90 m³, which one can easily believe to be rather large, requiring care and proper design of the chamber with reinforcements to ensure suitability for handling and transportation as well as continual trouble-free working.