Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2020 - 16

inside at.... Ship & Shore Environmental
Regenerative thermal
oxidiser system

continued from page 15
like it are visible, she added,
recalling that 20-25 years ago,
the air in Los Angeles was so
bad that when arriving in a
plane, 'you could not see a few
feet in front of you while 'today
the air in California is absolutely beautiful and clear'.

Control though
combustion
Ship & Shore specialises in the
regenerative thermal oxidation of
VOCs. Oskouian, a chemical engineer who started her career at
Fluor Daniel, a major EPC company, gained experience with
projects and project management there prior to setting up her
own company. She is now wholly
focused on the environmental

May/June 2020

side of things, yet at the same
time makes use of her engineering background - a background
that has proven to be 'very helpful', in building systems that save
energy and help companies reduce their carbon footprint.
In the past, she explained,
this kind of equipment was
called an incinerator, because
combustion is one of the bestknown waste treatment methods for industrial gas. Given the
proper design and engineering
virtually all organic gasses can
be safely and cleanly destroyed.
Today's systems are far more
efficient than the incinerators of
the 'olden days', said Oskouian.
"We don't use a lot of natural
gas anymore - only to get the
process started." This is necessary in order to bring the temperature up to the desired level,
as often, the energy released

during combustion of the VOCs
is not enough to do so. The heat
exchangers in modern-day systems keep the use of auxiliary
fuel to a minimum.
Regenerative thermal oxidisers - RTOs - are the most
commonly used systems today.
They make an optimum usage of energy possible, offering a thermal energy recovery
that can reach 95%-97%, and
destruction rates for VOCs of
96%-99%. Unlike traditional
approaches to energy recovery,
little, if any, fuel support is needed for most applications, saving
on operating cost. The systems
use direct contact ceramic heat
exchangers that can tolerate
the high temperatures that are
needed to achieve ignition of
the waste stream. The process
is a cyclic one: the gases flow
past the first, hot ceramic bed,

react, thereby releasing energy, in the combustion chamber
and pass through the second
ceramic bed. When this second
bed reaches a set temperature,
the process flows are reversed.
The incoming gas passes the
second ceramic bed and exits
through the first. In this way,
the heat from the exhaust air
is transferred back to incoming
process air.
"It is important to realise that
these organic compounds have
heating value. What we have
done is we design the systems
in such a way that we capture
all the heat that is released from
the organic compounds emitted
as part of industrial processes,"
Oskouian said. The heat can be
returned to industrial facility, in
colder climates, for heating purposes; hot water or steam can
also be provided to the facilities,

Sustainable Plastics - May/June 2020

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