Design of a Small-Scale Supercritical Water Oxidation Reactor. Part I: Experimental Performance and Characterization

02 November 2020, Version 1
This content is a preprint and has not undergone peer review at the time of posting.

Abstract

A small-scale supercritical water oxidation reactor is designed and fabricated to study the destruction of hazardous wastes. The downward bulk flow is heated with the introduction of pilot fuel (ethanol/water mixture), and oxidant (H2O2/water mixture). Both streams are introduced coaxially. The fuel dilution is varied from 2 to 7 mol% ethanol/water, and the oxidant-to-fuel stoichiometric equivalence ratio (ΦAF), is varied from 1.1 to 1.5. Higher ethanol concentrations in the pilot fuel stream and operation near-stoichiometric results in a more stratified temperature profile, i.e., highest local fluid temperatures near the top and the lowest temperatures at the bottom of the reactor. Steady operation at 603.5 °C is achieved with a nominal residence time of 25.3 s at 7 mol% fuel dilution and ΦAF of 1.1. At the lowest pilot fuel dilution (2 mol%), the temperature profile is nearly uniform, approaching a distributed reaction regime.

Keywords

Supercritical Water
Oxidation
Waste Destruction
Process Engineering
Reactor Design

Supplementary materials

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