Advanced Thermal Ammonia Stripping

Ammonia Stripping

Thermal stripping provides a low cost alternative to the use of carbon addition in a biological process. The thermal-stripper breaks the ammonium-ion bond with heat alone. This action converts ammonia into a gas, NH3, which can be driven from the liquid-phase with suitable quantities of air. In a single pass it is possible to achieve greater than 98.5% removal of ammonia by this mechanism.

Organics has developed a low-NOx combustion process for flaring waste gas which involves Exhaust Gas Recycle. When combined with the thermal destruction of ammonia gases the result is extremely low NOx emission levels. Heat from the thermal-oxidiser used to destroy ammonia is recovered in conventional heat-recovery economisers and used to power the thermal ammonia stripper.

Ammonia Recovery – Water Scrubber

An alternative to destroying the stripped ammonia is recovery with the use of an acid scrubber. The Advanced Thermal Ammonia Stripper with Ammonia Salt recovery has been developed and patented by Organics to provide a fundamental option for disposing of, or benefiting from, ammonia removed from wastewater streams. Typically, nitric, sulphuric or phosporic acid may be used to create the ammonium ion salt.

In this arrangement a thermal oxidiser for ammonia-gas destruction is not required. The single important input remains waste-heat with which to drive fracturing of the ammonium ion into ammonia gas. Such wasteheat can be taken from any suitable source, such as a gas engine’s exhaust, excess process steam or any other heat-source where energy is available for disposal. Once the process is commenced, the exothermic reaction encountered in salt formation offers the potential of significant energy savings.