Supercritical Water Oxidation Data Acquisition Testing

Abstract

Supercritical Water Oxidation (SCWO) is a high pressure oxidation process that blends air, water, and organic waste material in an oxidizer in which where the temperature and pressure in the oxidizer are maintained above the critical point of water. Supercritical water mixed with hydrocarbons, which would be insoluble at subcritical conditions, forms a homogeneous phase which possesses properties associated with both a gas and a liquid. Hydrocarbons in contact with oxygen and SCW are readily oxidized. These properties of SCW make it an attractive means for the destruction of waste streams containing organic materials. SCWO technology holds great promise for treating mixed wastes in an environmentally safe and efficient manner. In the spring of 1994 the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) initiated a Supercritical Water Oxidation Data Acquisition Testing (SCWODAT) program. The SCWODAT program provided further information and operational data on the effectiveness of treating both simulated mixed waste and typical Navy hazardous waste using the SCWO technology. The program concentrated on the acquisition of data through pilot plant testing. The Phase I DOE testing used a simulated waste stream that contained a complex machine cutting oil and metals, that acted as surrogates for radionuclides. The Phase II Navy testing included pilot testing using hazardous waste materials to demonstrate the effectiveness of the SCWO technology. The SCWODAT program demonstrated that the SCWO process oxidized the simulated waste stream containing complex machine cutting oil, selected by DOE as representative of one of the most difficult of the organic waste streams for which SCWO had been applied. The simulated waste stream with surrogate metals in solution was oxidized, with a high destruction efficiency, on the order of 99.97%, in both the neutralized and unneutralized modes of operation.