Supercritical Water Oxidation - Commercial Applications

Commercial Applications

Several companies in the United States are working to commercialize supercritical reactors to destroy hazardous wastes. Widespread commercial application of SCWO technology requires a reactor design capable of resisting fouling and corrosion under supercritical conditions.

In Japan a number of commercial SCWO applications exist, among them one unit for treatment of halogenated waste built by Organo. In Korea two commercial size units have been built by Hanwha.

In Europe, Chematur Engineering AB of Sweden commercialized the SCWO technology for treatment of spent chemical catalysts to recover the precious metal, the AquaCat process. The unit has been built for Johnson Matthey in the UK. It is the only commercial SCWO unit in Europe and with its capacity of 3 m³/h it is the largest SCWO unit in the world. Chematur's Super Critical Fluids technology was acquired by SCFI Group (Cork, Ireland) who are actively commercializing the Aqua Critox SCWO process for treatment of sludge, e.g. deinking sludge and sewage sludge. Many long duration trials on these applications have been made and thanks to the high destruction efficiency of 99.9%+ the solid residue after the SCWO process is well suited for recycling. In the case of deinking sludge as paper filler and in the case of sewage sludge as phosphorus and coagulant. SCFI Group operate a six metric ton/day Aqua Critox demonstration plant in Cork, Ireland.

Turbosystems Engineering (California, USA) is actively commercializing their patented transpiring wall SCWO reactor ("TWR") with a focus on renewable energy applications. The TWR has been demonstrated to provide superior resistance to fouling and corrosion. The TWR is capable of operating at reaction temperatures in excess of 800 deg C, at pressures above or below the critical pressure of water, and has been demonstrated at a feedrate of 0.5 metric tons/day.