Portable infrared incinerator

Performance Assessment of a Portable Infrared Incinerator Thermal Destruction Testing of Dioxin... 

Destruction of dioxins and dibenzofurans in contaminated soils and wastes is best achieved by high-temperature pyrolysis. Treatment of soils contaminated with polychlorinated di-benzo-p-dioxins at 2200°C (3992°F) in an electrically heated pyrolyzer reduced levels of tetra-, penta-, and hexachlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans to <0.12 ppb (Boyd et al. 1987). Waterland et al. (1987) reported destruction and removal efficiencies greater than 99.9999% for TCDD in still-bottom wastes with initial concentration of 37 ppm TCDD using a rotary kiln incineration system. Portable infrared incinerators having removal efficiencies greater than 99.9999% have been reported (Daily 1987). 

Daily, P. L. 1987. Performance assessment of a portable infrared incinerator thermal destruction testing of dioxin. ACS Symp. Ser. 338 311-18 cited in Chem. Abstr. CA 707(10) 83345t. 

The Portable Unit was designed to demonstrate the performance of the Shirco Infrared Incinerator in many thermal treatment applications. The construction details and process functions of the trailer-mounted incinerator are identical to a full-scale infrared incinerator. The system consists of a feed preparation system, an infrared primary chamber, a gas-fired secondary chamber, a wet gas scrubber, an exhaust system, heating element power centers (HEPC), and data acquisition and control systems. All equipment is enclosed within a 45-foot trailer. A schematic representation of the Portable Unit is shown in Figure 1. 

The Portable Unit has successfully demonstrated its capability for thermal treatment of hazardous wastes at the source of the material. This type of on-site treatment would eliminate the need of transportation of hazardous materials to a distant site of stationary treatment equipment. The Portable Unit also has demonstrated that it can be moved to a site and be ready to treat material very quickly, a capability which will be very important in operation of full scale equipment. The on-site treatment of the Times Beach dioxin contaminated soil resulted in no dioxin detected in any of the incinerator effluent streams. The product of the testing activity was soil with no detectable level of dioxin. Dioxin contaminated soil thermally treated in this manner will yield soil which can be disposed as non-hazardous material. The decontamination was performed without exceeding RCRA requirements for particulate emissions and with dioxin destruction efficiencies surpassing the required percentage. The overall conclusion was that the infrared incinerator can very effectively remove dioxin from contaminated... 

An estimated 2.8 million capacitors are in use in the USA. About 2000 of them rupture every year, causing spillage into the environment. As in the case of transformers, there are no tools to predict capacitor failure. Soil samples have to be tested for contamination, and the solid PCB-containing material must be shredded prior to incineration. The utility industry considers it to be cost-ineffective to recover the part/parts of the contaminated capacitors. Portable screening devices such as x-ray fluorescence meters for transformer oil, acoustical detectors to detect the ultrasonic sound from a faltering capacitor, and an infrared scanner to measure the temperature-rise of the faltering capacitor have been studied in the field (Miller, 1982). 

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