THERMAL DECONTAMINATION IN A STAGED FLUIDIZED-BED CONTACTOR

Thermal detoxification of contaminated soils requires heating the soil to the destruction temperature for an adequate period of time. The pr ocess is expensive, partially due to the heat wasted by expelling high temperature effluent streams from the process. The staged fluidized b ed contactor (SFBC) is an energy efficient cascaded system that is int ended to recover energy from both the spent soil and hot gases leaving the combustion zone of SFBC. Models of the SFBC were developed to ass ess the impact of incineration stage flow regime, and to show the adeq uacy of the shallow SFBC as a cost-effective thermal decontaminator.