Regenerative Catalytic Oxidizer (RCO)
Regenerative Catalytic Oxidizers is a technique based on
the same principle
as
RTO. The RCO uses a catalytic system to obtain a lower
required temperature for oxidation. This causes the
oxidizer to operate more efficiently, thus lowering its
energy requirement and the lower operating limit. Due to
smart catalyst choice, only very limited amounts of by-products are formed. More information
Bacterial Consumption
Bacteria can be used for removing
methane from a process stream. Investigations on
biofilters show a methane efficiency about 80%. These
conversions require long retention times, over a hour,
to be obtained. This means that large filters are
required. A possible solution for this problem is
the use of a biotrickling filter, which increases the
activity of the bacteria. More information
Conclusion
RCO is the best technique since it is a known and proven concept for this application. It is a bigger capital investment than a RTO, but has much lower operating costs, due to the low autothermal point. The porous burner has good results on methane removal and therefore could be a great alternative to RTO. However, it needs further investigation on the size and costs of the system. The other technique, bacteria consumption, is still in development and needs far more research to get a comparable insight.
