Development of an evaporation crystallizer for desalination of alkaline organic wastewater before incineration

Abstract

A wastewater evaporation-desalination pretreatment method was introduced to remove the Na+ and K+ salts in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) wastewater before it was fed into the incinerator. VOCs in the wastewater were volatilized in the evaporation system and then the vapor was combusted in an incinerator. Simulated phenol wastewater containing sodium chloride was evaporated and concentrated and sodium chloride was crystallized in different parameters. The experimental results showed that the higher initial concentration of sodium chloride increases the ratio of volatilization of VOCs, which was due to the effect of “salting out” (a decrease in the solubility of the nonelectrolyte, in the solution, or more rigorously, an increase in its activity coefficient, caused by the salt addition (Furter and Cook, 1967)). When evaporation speed was increased from 1.67 ml/min to 2.73 ml/min, the total removal coefficient of sodium chloride was about 99.88%–99.99%. This pretreatment procedure eliminates the slag phenomenon caused by Na+ and K+ salts during wastewater incineration, so the incinerator could operate continuously, and the wastewater evaporation could increase the heat value of wastewater, and the operation cost, would be reduced.