The VOC laden air first passes through a rotary adsorber. As the process air passes through the adsorber the VOC are adsorbed onto the media affixed to the rotor. The clean process air is then exhausted to atmosphere. The VOC adsorbed on the rotor are continuously removed by a high temperature low volume desorption air stream. The desorption airstream containing the VOC desorbed from the rotor is then typically directed into a thermal oxidizer for destruction of the VOC.

Recuperative Thermal Oxidizer

The purpose of the Recuperative Thermal Oxidizer is to destroy Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) in the concentrator desorption air stream. This is achieved by heating the airstream with a natural gas fired burner to approximately 1350°F and retaining it at this temperature for approximately 0.5 - 1.0 second. This causes the VOC in the airstream to spontaneously undergo an oxidation reaction in which the VOC are converted to carbon dioxide and water vapor. The purified process exhaust is then discharged to atmosphere. The recuperative oxidizer uses an integral shell and tube heat exchanger plus a secondary heat exchanger. The primary heat exchanger recovers approximately 60% (at full flow) of the heat from the purified process exhaust and re-use it to pre-heat the incoming VOC laden process exhaust. A secondary heat exchanger is used to warm up the desorption airstream for the rotary concentrator. This enables the system to operate with minimal natural gas consumption.