destruction of dielectric oils by supercritical water oxidation: towards an alternative process for the treatment of polycloriated biphenylis (PCBs)

Abstract

Supercritical water oxidation has proved to be effective in the destruction of a wide spectrum of persistent organic pollutants, including PCBs, of which our country has an important inventory. In the present work supercritical water oxidation of waste dielectric oils without PCBs is studied as a first step in determining the appropriate operating conditions that allow dielectric oils contaminated with PCBs to be destroyed, in an environmentally friendly manner. All of the experimental treatments produce practically total estruction of the dielectric oil, at conditions that turn out to be mild and industrially obtainable. This work and several other studies on dielectric oil destruction, indicate that at the established operating conditions it may be feasible to destroy all of the PCBs below the detection limit as long as a residence time longer than 15 seconds is guaranteed.