SCWO System Designs for Waste Treatment:  Application to Chemical Weapons Destruction

Abstract

Supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) is a rapidly maturing technology for organic waste destruction, as witnessed by the increased number of full-scale plants being constructed around the world for many diverse feeds. The U.S. Army is one organization that has committed to installing SCWO as part of its overall demilitarization process for chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Chemical Activity in Richmond, KY. This choice of technology was based on extensive testing conducted by the Army on two different reactor designs: solid wall and transpiring wall reactors. This paper presents data and results from this test program conducted for both SCWO reactor system designs.