Generalized kinetic models for supercritical water oxidation of cutting oil wastes

Supercritical Water Oxidation (SCWO) has been proved to be a powerful techn ology to eliminate a wide range of wastes, but there are few references in the literature about the application of SCWO to oily wastes. Even though th ese industrial wastes are quite important due to their large volume and tox icity, no attempt to study the kinetics involved have been found in the lit erature. In this work, SCWO have been tested to treat cutting oil wastes in a continuous flow system operating at 400-500 degreesC. In order to simpli fy the kinetic study of a complex waste, a generalized kinetic model availa ble in the literature has been proved to represent the evolution of the oxi dation process in terms of TOC and acetic acid. A modification of that mode l is proposed here, considering carbon monoxide as the main refractory inte rmediate in the reaction scheme. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science BN. All rights r eserved.