MaximaLabs

Wet air oxidation, where the pressure is the point

Dissolved organics oxidized by dissolved oxygen at temperature and pressure, with the water deliberately kept liquid.

Liquid-phase oxidation — pressure keeps water from boilingExactly mass-balanced destruction of dissolved organicsTreats streams too dilute to burn and too toxic to biotreat
Phenolic wastewater
Oxygen
Preheater
Mix
WAO reactor
Cooler
Off-gas separator
Off-gas
Treated water

The actual dark-mode canvas: phenolic wastewater preheated and mixed with oxygen, oxidized in the liquid phase under pressure, then cooled and separated into off-gas and treated water.

Why the pressure is the point

Oxidizing organics in water at 200–300 °C would boil the water and cost its latent heat — an enormous penalty on a dilute stream. Holding the system above the saturation pressure keeps everything liquid, so only the organics are oxidized. That is the entire economic argument, and the flowsheet solves the reactor at conditions where it actually holds.

C6H5OH+7O26CO2+3H2O\mathrm{C_6H_5OH} + 7\,\mathrm{O_2} \longrightarrow 6\,\mathrm{CO_2} + 3\,\mathrm{H_2O}
P>pH2Osat(T)(pressure exists to keep the water liquid)P > p^{sat}_{\mathrm{H_2O}}(T) \quad \text{(pressure exists to keep the water liquid)}
no evaporationno latent-heat penalty on the bulk water\text{no evaporation} \Rightarrow \text{no latent-heat penalty on the bulk water}

Unit ops shipped for this vertical

Heater / cooler

Duty- or outlet-condition-specified energy-balance stage.

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Mixer

Combines multiple streams into one, closing the mass and energy balance.

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Fixed-conversion reactor

A specified per-pass conversion on a key component — the shortcut counterpart to the equilibrium and kinetic reactors.

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Flash drum

Single-stage vapor-liquid equilibrium split at a fixed temperature/pressure.

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Live plant integration

Stream reactor temperature, pressure and treated-water COD from the unit's OPC-UA server into this flowsheet's twin comparison — WAO conversion is steeply temperature-dependent, so a small drop is a large COD breakthrough.

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Try it yourself

  • Liquid-phase oxidation — no latent-heat penalty
  • Exactly mass-balanced destruction of dissolved organics
  • Treats what is too dilute to burn and too toxic to biotreat

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