Waste incineration assessment and optimisation

High temperature combustion is a common method for disposing of hazardous wastes that are not safe for landfill. With sufficiently high temperatures and residence times, hazardous organic compounds are reduced to a mixture of inert ash, water vapour and carbon dioxide. The same is true for many industrial chemicals, although they may also have upper temperatures above which devolatilization reactions may release toxic heavy metal compounds. Ensuring that an incinerator reaches and maintains the correct temperature ranges over the complete mass of waste products is essential to safe disposal of the waste.

Figure 1: Temperature contours within the primary combustion chamber of a waste incinerator. Fuel is injected through a jet on the left-hand side.

Synergetics utilizes CFD to simulate and evaluate furnace operations before construction, thus minimizing risk for our clients. Simulating multiple furnace designs using CFD allowed the client to select the optimal design and successfully achieve their target temperatures.

For further examples of thermal process CFD see our sector page.