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26 th April 2018 An Engineering Approach to Scale-up John Robinson
26th April 2018
An Engineering Approach to Scale-up
John Robinson
Why Microwaves?
Gain commercial advantage through:
Improved product quality
New product options
Cost reduction
Compliance with new legislation
Increased capacity
Energy efficiency
Why Microwaves?
Selective Heating & Volumetric Heating
Produces unique thermal gradients and mass
transfer effects
Overcomes heat-transfer limitations
Reduces processing time
Reduces process footprint
Treatment of oil-contaminated drill cuttings
Scale-up case study
Technology requirements
Low footprint
Low deck-load
Minimum utility
demand
Achieve <1%
residual oil
Removal of Volatile Organics
Multiple mechanisms for volatile removal during
microwave heating
All arise from heating water
Entrainment, Steam Distillation, Thermal desorption,
Decomposition
Exploiting the right mechanism
Oil
Content
Energy Input
High Heating Rate
Low Heating Rate
Why does heating rate matter?
High Heating
Rate
Low Heating
Rate
Conventional
Processing
Installed
Power
Requirement
100kW 500kW 850kW
Peak
Temperature
100oC 280oC 280oC
Residence
Time
5 seconds 10 minutes 20 minutes
Plant
footprint
15m2 100m2 120m2
Process requirements for 1 tonne per hour
Exploiting the right mechanism
Oil
Content
Energy Input
High Heating Rate
Low Heating Rate
Commercial Advantage
10
Multidisciplinary approach
Electric Field Strength (x105 V/m)
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0Cuttings on Conveyor Belt
Current Status
Continuous, containerised processing system
developed to offshore specification
4 x 100 kW power units, operating at 896 MHz
Can process up to 5 tonnes per hour, depending on
water content
Proven on an industrial oil-field site
Pilot-scale unit to act as a test-bed for other
applications
Engineering scale-up summary
Understand the commercial drivers and why
microwaves should be used
Identify the dependence on energy and heating rate to
define the scale-up route
Multidisciplinary approach to assess and implement
industrial processing concepts
Existing supply-chain in place
Exploiting volumetric heating
Exploiting volumetric heating
