A numerical study of supercritical water oxidation of phenol

Supercritical water oxidation has attracted attention of many researchers ever since the idea has emerged about three decades ago as a promising technique in the waste management industry. Providing more details about the behavior of a supercritical water oxidation system under various operating conditions and extending available data can greatly assist more accurate and reliable design of such systems. In this study, oxidation of phenol in supercritical water has been modeled as a plug flow reactor. The variations of main system parameters such as temperature and waste concentration along the reactor have been calculated. The numerical model predictions have been compared with available experiments and good agreement has been obtained for steady state operation conditions. In addition, the responses of the numerical model to some unsteady events, such as sudden increases of mass flow rate or fluid inlet temperature have been examined. These situations may possibly occur due to malfunction of various components of the system. It has been shown that the design temperature of the reactor with usual consideration of the safety factors supports the probable range of sudden alterations.