Hazardous waste destruction and nitric oxide reduction with externally forced oscillation

Abstract

The research described here focuses on the enhancement of hazardous waste destruction and the reduction in nitric oxide and unburned emissions in a cavity incinerator, which has externally forced acoustic oscillation. The specific configuration of the incinerator was manufactured to consist of two opposing jets and a rearward facing step [Chun, 1999]. The cavity-type incinerator warrants a sufficient residence time and effective turbulent mixing by the formation of a strong recirculation region in a combustion cavity. The experiments were carried out about combustion characteristics in a 3.2 kW laboratory scale, transportable, cavity incinerator without external oscillation. These showed that hazardous waste was destructed effectively, but unfortunately NO was increased by high gas temperature. To solve this problem, we developed an externally oscillated auxiliary burner embedded on the incinerator furnace. The external oscillation was effective to reduce NO which is produced at high temperature incineration and to destruct hazardous waste, simultaneously. Emissions of NO are seen to be decreased by nearly 60%, and DRE (destruction and removal efficiency) is above 99.99%, all with external forcing at a specific optimum conditions.