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Natural Gas Equipment

Thermal Oxidizers

For VOC elimination, thermal oxidizer systems can attain over 99% destruction efficiency. Your VOC characteristics and the balance between capital investment and operating costs will determine the system that best fits your needs – simple afterburner, recuperative, regenerative, or catalytic:

After Burner - The typical after burner consists of a burner, a burner train, a combustion blower and a process fan. This low-cost option is used for very high VOC concentration where only a small amount of fuel is needed to maintain combustion. Because heat recovery is not used, these systems tend to be more expensive to operate.

Recuperative - In a recuperative unit, the basic operation of the afterburner is retained except that much of the waste heat is captured in a heat exchanger to preheat the incoming air, increasing thermal efficiency.

Regenerative - A regenerative system provides extremely high thermal efficiency. These systems achieves up to 95% heat recovery by employing two ceramic heat recovery beds, switching between them such that the incoming air is preheated by one while the exhaust gas is "regenerating" the other.

Catalytic - Catalytic oxidation systems rely on a bed of catalyst to oxidize low VOC concentrations at about half the temperature of other thermal oxidizers. They are expensive, but have very low operating cost.

The "Right Fit" - Finding the system that best fits your individual application needs will depend on:

  • Level of control required
  • Pollutants to be removed
  • Concentration of pollutants in the air stream
  • Total volume/flow of the air stream
  • Operating costs
  • First costs of equipment

 

 

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