Supercritical water oxidation research and development update

Supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) is a form of hydrothermal treatment. During the early research and development (R&D) period (early 1980s), it has been demonstrated that SCWO can be an effective alternative to the destruction of hazardous organic wastewaters and sludges. Because of this promising potential and growing interest in SCWO technology, R&D efforts have been intensified. As a result, the first SCWO commercial facility (1100 Liter/hour) developed by Eco Waste Technologies was commissioned in August 1994. Also, a number of demonstration SCWO facilities exist in various companies, national laboratories, and federal agencies. This recent development has should that the SCWO process produces enuironmentally acceptable effluents (gas, liquid and solid), lends itself to resource recovery, and can be economically competitive. As such the process can be used to serve as a pretreatment unit, an end-of-pipe facility or become an integral part of an industrial process. More recently, the SCWO&D program has been expanded. The research activities now include move detailed studies involving reaction kinetics, catalysis, salt solubility, corrosion, heavy metal speciation, solids separation and resource/by-product recovery Technology development involves process and reactor design, materials evaluation, heat recovery, control systems, effluent handling, ash disposal, safety requirements, and process integration.