UC Irvine

Incineration is a promising technique for the disposal of organic hazardous wastes. However, the waste destruction characteristics of turbulent spray flames have not been characterized. In the present research two reactors are used to simulate various aspects of liquid injection incinerator flame zones. The following questions are addressed: (1) Under what conditions do flames quantitatively destroy waste compounds, and (2) how must the flame be perturbed to cause it to fail to quantitatively destroy wastes. The two reactors operated on a simulated waste stream consisting of acrylonitrile, benzene, chlorobenzene, and chloroform. A microspray reactor was used to investigate destruction processes associated with individual droplets of waste compounds. A turbulent flame reactor used a heptane-fueled waste-doped turbulent spray flame to simulate incinerator flame-zone processes. The flames were found to be capable of quantitative waste destruction without the necessity of using common post-flame processes such as afterburners. Furthermore, the high waste destruction efficiency conditions corresponded to high combustion efficiency conditions (i.e., minimum CO and hydrocarbon emissions). Failure to achieve high destruction efficiency resulted from the perturbation of flame parameters. Failure conditions were identified with high and low theoretical air, low temperature, poor atomization quality, and flame impingement on a cold surface. Each failure condition also resulted in elevated CO and hydrocarbon emissions. Thus, the results suggest that CO and hydrocarbon measurements can be used as an indirect, continuous means of monitoring incinerator flame-zone performance. © 1985 Combustion Institute.