The Abused and Neglected RTO

The Abused and Neglected RTO:

This is a picture of the hot face from one chamber of a 5-chamber RTO (Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer). This  RTO was in trouble. It could no longer pull its designed air flow volume due to media plugging. The plant was forced to shut down critical sources, which crippled production. 

We estimated the unit had lost over a third of its capacity - we're talking well over 30KSCFM lost from this 100KSCFM RTO.

Before RHZ was brought in, another RTO service company thought they could address cold face plugging by rolling a heavy piece of equipment across the hot face. It didn't work, and they damaged thousands of expensive blocks in the process; if you look closely you can still see the tread marks. They also neglected to address the perimeter voids left from ceramic saddle settling.

RHZ reduced the differential pressure from over 30"WC (the needle on the pressure gauge was buried) down to 6.75"WC, and we'll be addressing the perimeter voids in the near future.

The drastic reduction in utility consumption that resulted from our corrective action brought concerned calls from the corporate office. They wondered if someone had accidentally shut down the RTO.

Needless to say, they were very happy by the end of the call.