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Caprolacton waste handling

Q: I have been working with GSFC Ltd-India as a process engineer mainly looking after troubleshooting and modification/upgrade activities of a caprolacton plant. At one of our old plants, the unit burns process liquid fluid west — one mixed/purged hydrocarbons with high CV (approx. 7,500 Kcal/Kg) and the other mainly inorganic (soda) with low CV (approx. 1,200 Kcal/Kg). We are facing the perennial problem of inconsistent burning due to fluid properties resulting in the frequent choking of the burner gun. Moreover, the plant’s thermal design is highly inefficient. We intend to go for new plant with better design that can also handle solid waste generated in plant to deal with the environmental issues. Are there alternatives available to improve the performance in situation? Can you recommend design aspects to be considered and a competent supplier/designer for such a plant? The preliminary data of the fluids to be handled is 1) High CV fluid — 40 MT/day; 2) Low CV fluid — 400 MT/day; and 3) Solid waste 1 MT/week (CV unsteady or less than 200 Kcal/Kg).

A: Caprolacton waste is hard to handle from my experience. With caprolacton waste, it is important to keep it hot to keep it molten. Also, the fluids should be kept moving to prevent any localized solidification. Recycle lines should be provided back from any isolation points back to the source tanks. Steam should be used for waste atomization to keep the waste hot in the injector. Also, waste atomization injector used should not have restrictions to keep the fluid flowing. In theory, solid waste can be combined with liquid waste and burned together. In reality, it would be difficult to combine them and keep them operating at a high efficiency. My suggestion would be to keep them separate if possible. Heat recovery may be possible depending on economics.