Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Vol. 39, Nos.

9–10, 2003

INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY

FLUE GAS CLEANING SYSTEMS FOR WASTE

INCINERATION PLANT

A. Yu. Val’dberg, V. I. Lazarev,

and T. N. Kuzina

Waste incineration plants are usually equipped with flue gas cleaning systems whose design determines the amount
and composition of the discharges, i.e., of pollutants in the gases, as well as by the customer’s requirements.
Flue gas cleaning systems are divided into wet and dry ones. In the first, the substances trapped are isolated as
sludge, while in the second, they are in dry form.
In both cases, one first cools the flue gases, whose temperature usually exceeds 1000°C. The extent of the cooling is
determined by the cleaning system. In a wet system, there are hollow spray scrubbers, which reduce the gas temperature to the
wet-bulb thermometer temperature. In some cases, if the flue gases have a high water vapor content, they are cooled to lower
temperatures (with partial water vapor condensation). This greatly reduces the gas flow rates and lowers the content of sus-
pended particles because of their condensation, but it involves considerable consumption of cooling reagent (circulating water).
Venturi scrubbers are used to remove suspended particles in wet systems.
In a dry system based on trapping the suspended particles in sleeve filters, the flue gases are cooled in scrubbers
involving the complete evaporation of the irrigating liquid until a temperature of 200–250°C is reached.
Acid gases (SO2, HCl, HF) are absorbed in a wet system in fast hollow absorbers following the Venturi scrubbers.
In a dry system, the acid gases are absorbed in a reactor loaded with lime powder or lime milk (dry and semidry
absorption). The reactor is located after the cooling scrubber, because the lime absorbs the acid gases most effectively at gas
temperatures close to the dewpoint. Following the reactor, the gas is passed through a sleeve filter, which eliminates all the
suspended particles, including the lime powder.
Activated charcoal is added to the reactor if it is necessary to complete the trapping in a dry system by removing
dioxins and mercury vapor.
Foreign experience shows that 30–80 mg/m3 of powdered active charcoal removes 90% of mercury vapor. When the
activated charcoal is used at a rate of about 19 mg/m3, the performance in trapping dioxin-type compounds is also 90%, while
with 59 mg/m3, it rises to 98.5%. That level guarantees that current standards are met for the residual concentrations of these
substances in the outgoing stack gases.
If the acid gases are neutralized by alkali directly in the reactor at high temperatures, the cleaning system has to
remove only suspended particles, which simplifies it considerably.
To reduce the content of NOx in the flue gases, one uses selective catalytic reduction by reaction with ammonia or
carbamide.
With the participation of NIIOGAZ, wet and dry treatment schemes have been devised for flue gases that are already
operating or are in the stage of construction.
Figure 1 shows a system for wet cleaning in a plant for combusting liquid or solid wastes. The acid gases are
absorbed (neutralized) by alkali before the cleaning system directly in the incinerator. Such systems have long been used, and

Open Joint-Stock Company NIIOGAZ. Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftegazovoe Mashinostroenie, No. 9,
pp. 34–35, September, 2003.

0009-2355/03/0910-0553$25.00 ©2003 Plenum Publishing Corporation 553

 Fig. 1. Wet gas cleaning system for a plant incinerating liquid and solid wastes: 1) scrubber
cooler; 2) Venturi tube; 3) cyclone droplet trap; 4) pump; 5) vessel for irrigating solution.

Fig. 2. Dry cleaning system for plant incinerating liquid and solid wastes: 1) evaporated scrubber;
2) sleeve filter; 3) receiver; 4) blower.

the first was brought into use 30 years ago in a plant for treating effluents in the production of caprolactam [1, 2], which has
worked successfully up to the present.
The input flue gas temperature is 1000–1100°C, which after the scrubber-cooler is reduced to about 80°C. The
hydraulic resistance does not exceed 12 kPa, and the dust content at the outlet is 30–50 mg/m3.
Figure 2 shows a dry system. The acid gases are also neutralized by alkali directly in the incinerator. The inlet gas
temperature is 1000–1100°C, while before the sleeve filter it is 150–220°C; hydraulic resistance not more than 3000 Pa, resid-
ual dust concentration 20–30 mg/m3.
Such a gas treatment system has been installed at the Sehwa Plant Co (Kenju, Korean Republic) following a plant
for incinerating liquid wastes [3]. The sleeve filter was provided by an FRKI-T equipment equipped with woven pheny-
lone cloth.
NIIOGAZ has devised a system for cleaning the gas discharges from plants incinerating the bodies of chemical
shells (Fig. 3), which has certain distinctive features. The hollow spray scrubber cools the gas from 1100 to 80°C. The
Venturi scrubber may be in a form with an adjustable throat area, and it reduces the dust concentration to 30–35 mg/m3.

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 Fig. 3. Gas cleaning system for the incineration of chemical shell bodies: 1) scrubber and cooler;
2) Venturi tube; 3) absorber; 4) fiber filter; 5) irrigating solution tank; 6) pump.

Fig. 4. Gas cleaning system for processing solid-fuel rocket engines: 1) scrubber and cooler;
2) Venturi scrubber with adjustable throat section; 3) absorber.

The subsequent spray absorber is irrigated with a weak alkali solution, which removes the acid gases. The fibrous mist
trapping filter eliminates droplets of phosphoric acid mist. The performance in removing the droplets is 99.9%. The total
hydraulic resistance is 11 kPa.
The gas treatment system works with a closed irrigation cycle. Part of the salt solution circulating in it is tapped off
for recycling. The loop is topped up with technical water, which balances the evaporative loss and the part of the solution
going to recycling.
The system for treating flue gases from processing solid-fuel rocket engines (Fig. 4) has a throughput up to 1 mil-
lion m3/h; the hollow scrubber provides condensation in the flue gases, in which the performance in removing suspended dust
particles (Al2O3) is 80–85%, while the volume flow rate of the flue gases is greatly reduced.
The final dust removal is performed in a Venturi scrubber. The hydraulic resistance is 20 kPa, and the trapping per-
formance attains about 95%.

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 HCl vapor is removed in virtually all cleaning systems. The hollow scrubber and Venturi scrubber are irrigated with
a solution of NaCl + 3% NaOH. The final treatment is provided in an absorber irrigated with 6% NaOH solution. The calcu-
lated HCl trapping performance in this system is 99.8%.

REFERENCES

1. Yu. F. Khutorov and B. S. Esilevich, “A system for wet cleaning of gases from the incineration of effluents in the
production of caprolactam,” Promyshl. Sanit. Ochis. Gazov, No. 5, 11–12 (1978).
2. A. Yu. Val’dberg, L. L. Nabutovskaya, Yu. F. Khutorov, et al., “Wet cleaning of gases from the incineration of efflu-
ents,” Khim. Promyshl., No. 10, 605–606 (1979).
3. A. Yu. Val’dberg and V. P. Aleksandrov, “Sleeve filters for treating flue gases in waste incineration,” Environmental
Eng., Vilnius: Technika, 6, No. 2, 53–58 (1998).

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