Design and Construction of a Pilot Scale System to Remove Pollutants from an Incinerator Effluent
Date Published: 2001-07-09
Paper Number:2001-01-2249
DOI: 10.4271/2001-01-2249
Citation:
Wickham, D., Bahr, J., Dubovik, M., Gebhard, S. et al., "Design and Construction of a Pilot Scale System to Remove Pollutants from an Incinerator Effluent," SAE Technical Paper 2001-01-2249, 2001, doi:10.4271/2001-01-2249.
Incineration is a promising method for converting biomass and human waste into CO
2
and H
2
O during extended planetary exploration. However, incineration produces small amounts of NO
X
and SO
2
in the effluent, which must be removed. TDA Research has developed a safe and effective process to remove NO
X
and SO
2
from waste incinerator product gas streams. In our process, NO is catalytically oxidized to NO
2
, using a low temperature oxidation catalyst developed at TDA. Wet scrubbers then remove the NO
2
, with most of the NO
2
converted into an aqueous solution that can be used as a plant nutrient. A packed bed containing a basic sorbent, also developed at TDA, removes SO
2
from the effluent.
As part of an SBIR Phase II project, TDA designed and constructed a pilot scale effluent cleaning system, which will be used with the incinerator at NASA Ames Research Center. In addition to NO
X
and SO
2
, the system is designed to remove other pollutants found in the effluent, including fly ash and unburned hydrocarbons. The apparatus constructed at TDA consists of a cyclone separator and filter for fly ash removal, a solid sorbent bed for SO
2
control, two catalyst beds for oxidation of NO, CO, and unburned hydrocarbons, two wet scrubbers to remove NO
2
, heat exchangers for thermal management, and instrumentation for process control. In this paper, we will present detailed data that was used to design the full scale NO oxidation reactor along with the NO
2
scrubbers. Our process for NO
X
control is simpler than the competing technology and is therefore attractive for NO
X
control for natural gas fired turbines and other stationary NO
X
sources.
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