A solar heated rotary kiln for the detoxification of hazardous wastes

Abstract
The treatment of numerous hazardous wastes like filter residues, dusts, metal scrap or heavily polluted waste water takes place at elevated temperatures. In current technologies the energy demand is delivered by the energetic content of the wastes, fossil fuels or electricity. Especially, at high concentration of inorganic components many hazardous wastes do not have a sufficient calorific value to cover the heat demand of the high temperature processes. The use of concentrated solar radiation for heat supply to the waste treatment would allow to substitute fossil fuels and to reduce the exhaust gas flow. Basing on the theoretical results of design studies of a solar waste treatment process a mini-plant rotary kiln was constructed for the solar furnace in cologne. The applicability of the rotary kiln mini-plant was verified by melting experiments. Also process simulations of exhaust gas cleaning plants are carried out for different layouts for selected waste materials in technical scale.