Hydrothermal oxidation of Navy excess hazardous materials

An oxidation system was designed to destroy Navy excess hazardous materials using hydrothermal (supercritical water) oxidation by air in the presence of high pressure, high temperature water. Stone & Webster was contracted by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research to design a very compact, automated shipboard unit. The hydrothermal oxidation system incorporates General Atomicsʹ reversing flow reactor technology. The excess hazardous materials consist of contaminated fuels, hydraulic fluids, lubricants, coolants, paint and photographic wastes. The hydrothermal oxidation technology converts organic components to CO2 and water and inorganics to mineral acids and oxides at high efficiency in a fully-enclosed processing environment of 870 K and 22.5 MPa.