Thermal Combustor System Product Page

Thermal Combustor System The Thermal Combustor System is a market driven answer to a unique set of vapor combustion air pollution control questions. Highly concentrated vent gas emissions are common within the natural gas processing and production, petro-chemical, and chemical processing, industries. These emissions are commonly low in volume but very high in concentration. Historically answers to these emissions challenges have included inefficient and dangerous flare technology. CPI brings to market our Thermal Combustor System as a much safer, more efficient, and more versatile abatement technology that is guaranteed to meet your air pollution control needs.

Thermal Combustor System Catalytic Products International is continuing our 45 year history of providing innovative air pollution control solutions with a line of highly flexible, economical EPA qualified, vapor combustion systems. CPIs Thermal Combustor Systems (TCS) routinely exceed all worldwide regulatory requirements while providing a level of sophistication that is unmatched in our industry. In todays ever tightening regulatory climate, traditional technologies such as open flares and pit flares cannot achieve consistent high VOC destruction at an economical installed cost. Low cost - High Performance - Long Life are the key advantages of CPIs Thermal Combustor Systems. Thermal Combustor Systems are designed to safely burn or combust hydrocarbon vapor mixtures. The TCS are widely flexible and can confidently handle the vent gas which may or may not be within the flammable range. The TCS provides an extraordinary level of safety when compared to traditional flaring systems. Our 45 year history of emissions abatement system design and manufacturing, assure you a safe and reliable system. Thermal Combustor Systems are custom designed for your specific process and can include forced draft or a normally drafted system along with a full complement of auxiliary devices to aid in performance and safety.

Thermal Combustor Systems are specially designed hydrocarbon vapor combustors that provide industry leading VOC destruction, the lowest operating cost, and the highest uptime reliability. The Thermal Combustor System offers all of these benefits in a single vessel design, allowing low installation and maintenance costs, an economic footprint, and reliable and consistent operation. The Thermal Combustor System incorporates our proven QUADRANT design as the basis for the continuous high VOC destruction. This system has been modified by using a specialized cross-fired heating system coupled with a louvered-vent style air quench system (or optional forced draft quench air system) to provide compete hydrocarbon destruction and safe operation. This proven technique will lower operating costs by using the off gas as a direct fired fuel, and lowering the amount of dilution air normally required. In a Thermal Oxidizer, a fuel source (usually natural gas) is used to heat a combustion chamber to a set operating temperature, usually 1,400 F. Once the operating temperature is reached, a process gas is introduced to the oxidizer, and mixes with the gases that are a result of fuel combustion. The gas temperature and residence time cause the VOCs in the combustion chamber to oxidize, resulting in a very high level of VOC destruction, usually exceeding 99%. Introducing gas streams into an oxidizer that have a high enough concentration to exceed 50% of the Lower Explosive Limit of the overall gas stream can suffer fatally from auto-ignition and creates higher equipment costs. The TCS Thermal Combustor Systems operates in a different fashion. There are effectively two burners in the system. The support burner, which acts as a Pilot system, is a fully modulated burner that controls the temperature of the combustion chamber. At startup, the support burner ignites and begins to heat the chamber. There is a small combustion air blower on the burner to support good combustion of the support fuel, and to encourage flame propagation. Once the combustion chamber reaches the operating temperature, a valve opens the second burner to the primary (waste gas) stream. This burner fires across the support burner, which is the ignition source. As the temperature from increased combustion rises in the combustion chamber, a louvered vent opens near the bottom of the oxidizer. Natural draft draws in enough fresh air to support good combustion, and to quench the high temperature flame from the primary fuel, maintaining combustion chamber temperature. This combustion air stream is precisely modulated to only input the exact amount of air necessary to provide near stoichiometric operation, and is introduced into the specially designed burner housing. The combination of waste gas and combustion air will then travel through the primary burner gas ring and then into the burner chamber. Once temperature is maintained, the support fuel can be shut off. Though the primary fuel is ignited through the burner, combustion chamber temperature is still important, as not all the VOCs in the gas stream will be fully destroyed in the burner flame. The additional residence time at temperature ensures the guaranteed destruction rate specified for the system. Introducing a very rich hydrocarbon off gas stream through a burner as a fuel is a far safer and dependable method of combustion than mixing the gas into a heated combustion chamber as you would with a Thermal Oxidizer.

One of the key design features of The Thermal Combustor System is that the process management does not require the use of complicated and slow reacting LEL measurement equipment. Combustion air is precisely metered based on maintaining a combustion chamber temperature. This simple innovation allows for fast response to fluctuating process gas streams, consistent and accurate fuel use, use of process fuel only when sufficient values are delivered, and lower capital, installation, and maintenance costs by eliminating the LEL systems. The complete system is supplied as an internally insulated vessel, designed to keep heat inside and limit shell growth. The internally insulated design maintains all expansion properties for long life, and lowers the installation costs since the system is pre-assembled, piped, and wired. No other system in the industry can meet the advantages found in the Thermal Combustor System.

TCS Operation

The TCS operation sequence begins by purging the entire system on fresh air. After purge, the TCS pilot and main burners are ignited and held in place until appropriate flame scanning safeties are met. Once flame safety requirements are met, process gas may be introduced to the TCS. The TCS system will automatically adjust to different volumes, concentrations, and heat values of the process gas. If the process gas does not have the energy to support combustion, natural gas may be added as a support fuel. The introduction of process gas will increase the internal temperature within the combustion chamber. To control the temperature and facilitate combustion fresh air is added to the system. The fresh air can be naturally aspirated or forced into the system. The combustion air brought into the system ensures mixing, sufficient oxygen, and controlled temperature combustion providing the optimum VOC destruction efficiency.

Sensors in the combustion zone constantly monitor temperature, allowing the PLC to control the heat release from the process gas. For example, as the process gas is introduced and the combustion temperatures rise, the PLC first reduces support fuel, allowing the process stream to be the main fuel source for the TCS. Once the support fuel is removed it starts to increase the amount of combustion air being used to help maintain temperature. The same also happens in reverse: If the temperature begins to fall, the additional air supplied will be removed and eventually the support fuel will be used to maintain the TCS temperature and process ready status. In either scenario hydrocarbon vapor destruction rates are achieved through a reliable, consistent combustion process.

Features
All Thermal Combustor Systems are fully enclosed designs that hides the flame while thermally combusting the vapor gas steam. This supports a safe design when compared to exposed flame flare systems and allows installation at numerous areas of any plant.

Turbulating Combustion Chamber

Working with our Process Gas Burner design, one of the most unique features found in any Thermal Combustor Systems is the Turbulating Combustion Chamber. Utilization of these features has paved the way for Thermal Combustor Systems to operate at the lowest temperatures possible while still providing the highest VOC destruction. Faced with todays compliance requirements the old design strategies of time and temperature are not enough. Thermal Combustor Systems meet the worlds most stringent emission limits by maximizing turbulent mixing, flame impingement and temperature uniformity we can assure users of low cost and ultra high destruction.

Process Gas Burner System

The combustion system in all the Thermal Combustor Systems is designed to safely process your waste stream directly as a fuel. This saves in overall size of the system, minimizes supplemental fuel consumption, and makes for a very economical pollution control system. The Process Gas Burner System will safely distribute and inject the gases into the Turbulating Combustion Chamber. All gas handling equipment, valving, and flame arrestors are designed and supplied to meet the highest safety levels.

Insulating Systems

All Thermal Combustor Systems utilize a specialized internal insulation system that will retain heat for low cost and cool shell temperatures, while allowing fast startups and long equipment life. The insulation system works in conjunction with the round design to eliminate fatigue for industry leading uptime reliability and the lowest maintenance costs.

Temperature Safety System

Every Thermal Combustor Systems is integrated with our customized PLC-control panel called TSS. TSS communicates with the TCS and your process for optimal performance, safety, and reliability. TSS optimizes the systems efficiency by managing temperatures, controlling the frequency drive, and positioning valves. This user friendly system provides automated operations, one button start - stops, self diagnostics, and data monitoring options for simplified maintenance and compliance verification. Each Thermal Combustor System is shop assembled and in some cases, we can provide factory acceptance testing to speed field installation and commissioning.

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Description Combustor Stack Process Gas Burner Support Fuel Train Combustion Blower Control Panel UV Scanner Test Ports Fresh Air Damper Process Inlet

Thermal Combustor System offer these standard features:

Process gas capacities up to 100 MMBTUH VOC destruction up to 99.9% High volumetric turndowns Normally aspirated and Forced Draft System Automated operation via TSS control systems Pre-piped and wired components Compact design with installation flexibility