What Is An RTO Thermal Oxidiser?

Using an incinerator, or thermal oxidiser to control air pollution is an effective but expensive way of making your exhaust fumes safer and more compliant. The irony of using high-temperature incinerators for pollution control comes from the energy expenditure of having to power the burner itself, which usually comes from natural gas, a fossil fuel. This costs you money, reducing your profit margin, and burns irreplaceable fossil fuel resources for no positive benefit, which in turn generates exhaust that has to be dealt with.

Waste Heat Reclamation

A regenerative thermal oxidiser is a slightly different proposition. It achieves the goal of incinerating hazardous compounds from exhaust fumes, but also lets you recover a lot of the waste heat, reducing the cost of pollution control and your energy expenditure.

An RTO system works by absorbing heat from an exhaust gas – which is often already at an extremely high temperature – and employs the captured heat to pre-heat and destroyed the pollutants in the bulk gas stream which escapes from the process at elevated temperatures (usually around 900°C). By using pre-treatment heat exchange towers alongside a main incineration chamber, RTO’s are effective at stripping out 85% to 97% of airborne pollutants from exhaust waste.

At the same time, the potential for heat recapture makes an RTO far more fuel-efficient than other types of incinerator.

Basic Components Of An RTO

Regenerative thermal oxidisers come in a variety of sizes and designs to deal with different pollutants. However, they all consist of two or three heat exchangers or towers, connected by a common high temperature combustion chamber and one or more burners. Within each tower there are beds filled with heat conductive ceramic material which provides a passage for the polluted air stream, and also acts as a storage vessel for the waste heat.

Common Applications For Regenerative Thermal Oxidation

RTO units can treat a wide variety of airborne pollutants, including foul-smelling gases, particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compounds. These pollutants are found in waste products from many chemical and industrial processes – such as those used in the printing and packaging industry, wood processing, ceramics, glass making and other sectors.

Talk To Us

At Therser, we design, manufacture, install and maintain a range of industrial furnaces, kilns and RTOs. Our RTO units operate at elevated temperatures to achieve near total destruction of contaminants in air streams coming from furnaces and kilns. We also design bespoke pollution control systems, upgrade or retrofit existing furnaces and provide full engineering support services; including calibration, relocation and regular maintenance. To discuss your requirements with one of our team please call us on 01782 824453.

For more information about RTOs and other pollution control devices, please click here to download our free guide to Controlling Air Pollution & Emissions.