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Application of Dry Flue Gas Scrubbing To Hazardous Waste Incineration
Application of Dry Flue Gas Scrubbing To Hazardous Waste Incineration
To cite this article: Peter J. Kroll & Peter Williamson (1986) Application of Dry Flue Gas
Scrubbing to Hazardous Waste Incineration, Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association, 36:11,
1258-1263, DOI: 10.1080/00022470.1986.10466176
History
Historically, the most common method sis, the caustic used in wet systems
of removing acid gases and particulate is approximately 8.5 times more ex- In the mid-1970s, developmental
from hazardous waste incineration flue pensive than pebble lime, and thus work was initiated by several firms to
gas has been a wet scrubbing process. reagent costs will be lower. apply the dry scrubbing process to in-
This typically involves an adiabatic dustrial and utility boilers for flue gas
b. Exit temperature of gas leaving the desulfurization (FGD). Several con-
quench for saturating the gases with dry system baghouse will be above
water, followed by an inertial scrubber tracts were awarded in the late 1970's
the saturation temperature, and and the first FGD dry scrubbing sys-
for particulate removal and a packed therefore, there will not be a visible
bed scrubber for acid gas removal. tems came on line in 1981. Many FGD
stack plume except during extreme systems have since been successfully
An important operation in this pro- weather conditions.
cess is the treatment of the resultant operating with the dry scrubbing pro-
scrubber effluent. Whereas this may c. A significant reduction of heavy cess in this country and abroad.
not be a significant concern for a large metals contained in the flue gases is The Niro Atomizer Company first
chemical plant complex with an ade- achieved by this system. The high applied the dry scrubbing process to
quate facility wastewater treatment degree of atomization of the lime hazardous waste incineration in Eu-
system, it can be a very substantial cost slurry produces particles of essen- rope in 1982 at the Kommunekemi fa-
and source of problems for a commer- tially all sizes up to 100 /um. This cility in Denmark. The process was
cial hazardous waste incinerator. Since enormous amount of surface acts to then applied at the SAKAB facility in
a dry scrubbing process has only a solid adsorb the bulk of the vapor-phase Sweden (see cover photo) and at the
residue discharge, it has become a via- heavy metals such as mercury, cad- Riihimaki, Finland facility (photo,
ble alternative to wet scrubbing for mium, arsenic and lead which are next page). Another hazardous waste
many incineration applications. carried over in the gas stream. In incinerator at Biebesheim, Germany
Other advantages of dry scrubbing addition, recent performance test- utilizes a conventional wet scrubber,
systems include: ing on solid waste incinerator flue but the effluent is injected into a spray
gas has shown that significant dryer upstream of the wet scrubber in
a. Lime can be used as the neutralizing amounts of products of incomplete order to obtain a dry residue discharge.
reagent. On a molar equivalent ba- combustion are also adsorbed by the All of the above facilities are regional,
Copyright 1986-Air Pollution Control Association lime slurry.1 noncommercial incinerators with ca-
Process Considerations
INDIVIDUAL MIXING
VANE RING
GAS DISPERSER
10-12 10-12
SECONDS SECONDS
GAS
SOLIDS
temperatures to insure complete dry- the acid gas, although the actual re- mally downflow and cocurrent with the
ing. agent feed will be at least 50 percent reagent flow.
Another advantage of cooling the excess lime to assure high removal effi- The SDA inlet temperature is nor-
gases below 800° F prior to the SDA is ciencies. The principal reaction that mally maintained at 450-800°F, de-
the simultaneous cooling of any molten occurs is: pending on the acid gas concentration.
particulates below their fusion point so The maximum practical temperature
they can be easily removed. Molten Ca(OH)2 + 2HC1 -* CaCl2 + 2H2O of 800°F is determined by the working
particulate has historically been a To a lesser extent, when SO2 is limits of carbon steel construction for
source of operating problems for com- present the following reaction will oc- the SDA. This, in turn, limits the
mercial and industrial incinerators. cur: amount of lime slurry which can be
It would appear that the use of a dried in the chamber and, therefore,
waste heat boiler upstream of the SDA Ca(OH)2 + SO2 -* CaSO3 + H2O the maximum acid gas concentration
would be the best approach if the resul- Some carbonation of lime also occurs which can be accommodated by the dry
tant steam can be utilized at the facili- due to the high carbon dioxide content scrubbing process is limited to approxi-
ty. The boiler will result in the smallest of the flue gas: mately 15,000 ppm of HC1 by volume in
dry scrubbing system of the three alter- the SDA inlet. This is difficult to trans-
natives due to the lower volume of Ca(OH)2 + CO2 — CaCO3 + H2O late into a maximum weight percent of
evaporated water and more efficient Line usage is generally defined in chlorine in the waste feed because of
gas dispersion. However, the boiler terms of SDA inlet molar equivalence the influence of combustion gas excess
should be designed with a flue gas re- ratios (MER) where: air and humidity.
circulation system to allow for greater The SDA outlet temperature is nor-
control of the SDA inlet temperature, mole-equivalents mally maintained as low as possible in
to compensate for load changes; as well of active Ca(OH)2 order to keep the droplets moist as long
as a large radiant section to cool molten MER = as possible and thereby increase the re-
mole-equivalents
particulate below its fusion point prior ofHClandSO 2 action rate. Moist particles will remove
to the convective section. HC1 through absorption, whereas dry
The SDA chamber geometry is de- particles will only use a slower adsorp-
Spray Dryer Absorber termined by the type of slurry atomiza- tion mechanism.2
tion and gas flow distribution em- CaCl2 exists as an anhydride above
The combustion gas from the incin- ployed (see Figure 2). In all cases a 392°F. Below this temperature, hydra-
erator enters the spray dryer absorber nominal 10-12 seconds of gas residence tion at the rate of 2 moles of water per
through a roof-mounted gas disperser time in the active SDA volume is al- mole of anhydride will occur. At 86°F,
and is distributed symmetrically lowed to ensure complete drying of the an additional 4 moles of water per mole
around one or more atomizers. The absorbent without wetting the cham- of anhydride are added. The high water
finely atomized absorbent (lime slurry) ber walls. Although the chamber geom- vapor partial pressure in the SDA out-
reacts essentially quantitatively with etries may differ, the gas flow is nor- let gas will enhance the formation of
FEEDBACK FROM
HCL ANALYZER
LIME SLURRY
FROM SURGE
TANK
DILUTION
WATER
FT=FLOW TRANSMITTER
FIOFLOW INDICATING
CONTROLLER
S.P.=SETPOINT
FEEDBACK FROM
SDA OUTLET
TEMPERATURE
CONTROLLER
DILUTED SLURRY
TO ATOMIZER
DRIED SOLIDS
930 LB/HR
— LIME SYSTEM: BULK HYDRATED LIME AND SLURRY TANK
— SPRAY DRYER RETENTION TIME: 35 SECONDS
— BAGHOUSE NET AIR/CLOTH RATIO: 1.13
— MOLAR EQUIVALENCE RATIO: 3.81
Figure 4. TWI gas cleaning flow diagram.
This cake also acts as reserve system volve dried solids that are high in CaCl2 effluent discharge to the municipal
alkalinity to smooth out any sudden content. The hygroscopic nature of sewer,
acid gas load changes. CaCl2 implies that this material is diffi- TWI obtained a permit from the Illi-
An electrostatic precipitator would cult to dry. As a result there is little nois EPA to construct two new 15 MM
not have this dried solids cake layer, reason to create a higher concentration Btu/h incinerators in February 1985.
and would thus require all acid gas to of CaCl2 in the slurry feed and compli- An economic and process evaluation by
be removed in the SDA. For this rea- cate the drying process. International Waste Energy Systems
son, a fabric filter is preferred for dry The dried solids are collected from (IWES) showed that the capital and
scrubbing systems for hazardous waste heated hoppers under the SDA and operating costs of wet scrubbing sys-
incineration. Since most of these incin- baghouse and conveyed to a single dis- tems, including effluent treatment, for
erators are 130 MM Btu/h or smaller, a charge point. Since all by-products of these incinerators was much greater
pulse-jet filter is normally used. hazardous waste incineration are con- than that for dry scrubbing systems.
The baghouse normally consists of sidered under RCRA to be hazardous CWM has filed a RCRA Part B per-
separate modules to facilitate insula- wastes unless they are delisted mit for a 50 MM Btu/h rotary kiln in-
tion for corrosion prevention. The net (through a complicated regulatory pro- cineration system for its Emelle, Ala-
air-to-cloth ratio with one module off- cess), the dried solids are normally tak- bama facility. There is currently a
line should be in the range of 3:1, or en to a secure landfill for disposal. Al- chemical waste landfill at this facility
lower, in order to provide low gas veloc- ternatively, the solids may be used in a but no effluent treatment systems. The
ity and high solids residence time. waste solidification process because of facility has a water supply shortage and
their high alkalinity and fly ash con- a desire to eliminate effluent discharge.
Dried Solids System tent. For these reasons, the incineration sys-
tem is being designed by IWES using a
The process depicted in Figure 1 is dry scrubbing process.
Commercial Incinerator Application
notably different from most dry FGD IWES is also in the process of devel-
systems in that there is no recycle of oping a mobile rotary kiln incineration
dried solids to the slurry system. Most Chemical Waste Management Experience system. Because most remedial hazard-
FGD systems use recycle to increase ous waste sites are remote and have
reagent utilization and improve slurry Chemical Waste Management inadequate water supply and accom-
drying characteristics. However, haz- (CWM) has two existing hazardous modations for an effluent discharge,
ardous waste systems would not nor- waste incinerators with wet scrubbing the dry scrubbing process will be ap-
mally utilize recycle of solids for the systems: the SCA Chemical Services plied to this system as well. The dried
following reasons: unit in Chicago and the TWI incinera- solids and kiln ash should be able to be
As stated previously, hazardous tor in Sauget, Illinois. In order for the stored and delisted at the site.
waste incinerators are generally much SCA commercial PCB incinerator to
smaller than dry FGD applications discharge its wet scrubber effluent into System Comparisons
and, as such, the additional capital cost the municipal sanitary district sewer, it
for a recycle system cannot normally be must maintain limits on the pH, tem- Figures 4 and 5 are block flow dia-
justified. In addition, dry FGD applica- perature, suspended and dissolved sol- grams for the TWI and Emelle facili-
tions normally involve dried solids that ids, and heavy metals concentration. ties. As discussed earlier, the TWI
are primarily CaSO3, whereas hazard- Similarly, the TWI facility must con- starved-air incinerator gas will enter
ous waste applications will usually in- trol heavy metals concentration in its the SDA directly at high temperatures
SPRAY
EVAPORATIVE DRYER CYCLONES
INCINERATOR COOLER ABSORBER
FLUE GAS
through a refractory-lined duct. The able for removal of acid gas and partic- Scrubbing of Hazardous Waste Incinera-
gases at 400-450° F will then flow to a ulate from hazardous waste incinerator tor Flue Gas by Spray Dryer Absorp-
four-module, pulse-jet filter and then tion," APCA Annual Meeting, San Fran-
combustion gases. Although there are cisco, 1984.
to the fan and stack. some limitations to dry scrubbing, it is 3. P. G. Maurin, H. J. Peters, V. J. Petti, F.
In comparison, the Emelle rotary becoming an increasingly viable alter- A. Aiken, "Two fluid nozzle vs. rotary
kiln incinerator gas will first be condi- native to wet scrubbing. This is partic- atomization for dry scrubbing systems,"
tioned by water sprays in an evapora- ularly true for applications where wa- Chemical Engineering Progress, (April
1983).
tive cooler to reduce the gases from ter and effluent treatment systems are 4. J. R. Donnelly, M. T. Quoch, J. T. Moller,
2200 to 550-800°F. The gases will enter unavailable, inadequate or costly. "Joy/Niro Spray Dryer Absorption Flue
the SDA through a pitched-vane, roof- Gas Cleaning System," Acid Gas &
mounted, gas disperser and exit at 300- Dioxin Control Conference, Washington,
Acknowledgments DC, 1985.
400°F. The gases will then flow
through a dual cyclone system, induced The authors would like to thank Wi-
draft fan, baghouse and stack. The leen E. Sweet for her assistance in coor-
baghouse is an existing, eight-compart- dinating this paper; and Joy Manufac-
ment, reverse-air filter which will oper- turing Western Precipitation Division
ate under positive pressure. The in- and Wheelabrator Air Pollution Con- Mr. Kroll is with International
duced draft fan will be placed up- Waste Energy Systems, 2150 Kienlen
trol for their technical support. Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63121. Mr.
stream of the baghouse and the Williamson is with Chemical Waste
cyclones will be placed between the fan Management in Houston, TX. Origi-
and SDA. References nally presented as paper 86-10.4 at
the 79th APCA Annual Meeting,
1. J. T. Moller, O. B. Christiansen, "Dry, Minneapolis, MN, June 1986, this
Conclusions Scrubbing of MSW Incinerator Flue Gas paper was recommended for publica-
by Spray Dryer Absorption: New Devel- tion in JAPCA as part of the Annual
opments in Europe," APCA Annual Meeting Technical Program peer re-
The dry scrubbing process has been Meeting, Detroit, 1985. view process.
proven to be highly efficient and reli- 2. J. T. Moller, O. B. Christiansen, "Dry