Invincible Condensibles? Conquered in RTO Control of Veneer Dryer Emissions, 1998 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Paul Vasquez

Georgia Pacific Corporation

James. T. Boswell, Ph.D.

David Chiles

Smith Environmental Corporation

Operation of a Smith RTO on veneer dryers at Georgia Pacifics’ Hawthorne Florida Plywood Mill provided a challenge because of the moisture saturated emission gas stream with significant condensable organics COC’s. The goal was to insure continuous operation of the RTO; maximizing destruction efficiency and heat recovery while minimizing maintenance time and expense.

Initial designs and pilot projects included a water condensation and collection box and a packed bed filter. This generated significant water and COC’s that were difficult to handle and created a maintenance headache. Smith designed a heat-boost system (Dry Flow TM, patent pending) to pre-heat the incoming emission stream, preventing condensation allowing elimination of the water condensation and collection box and the packed bed filter.

A full-scale unit 108,750 am 3

/hr (64,000 acfm) has been in continuous operation since February 1997. During a plant down-time, the RTO and duct work were inspected. No residual COC was evident either in the RTO or the incoming ducts and no condensation of water was evident or noted during operation. Destruction efficiency and heat recovery have been excellent. The team of Georgia Pacific and Smith engineers and scientists put condensibles in their place --- not out of place on the duct work or the inlet valves to the RTO.