Incinerators or thermal oxidisers are used to reduce pollutant emissions from a variety of industrial processes by treating the polluted gases before discharging them into the atmosphere.
To destroy the pollutants in the contaminated exhaust gases, the thermal oxidiser uses the principle of "thermal oxidation". Some applications include the addition of sour water and contaminated liquids together with the contaminated process gases into the combustion chamber to be burned at high temperatures, this heat being used as energy to produce steam by installing a boiler downstream of the oxidiser. After the boiler, a gas cooler, a stripper and an electrostatic precipitator can be installed before the treated gases leave the stack. This package is called Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG).
Thermal oxidation is a combustion process in which pollutants in the exhaust gas react with oxygen in a temperature-controlled environment to create an oxidation reaction. It is this chemical reaction that reduces the pollutants in the exhaust gas to a harmless emission (CO2, water vapour and heat) into the atmosphere.