The basic premise of the RTO is truly simple; heat is extracted from the hot purified gas and stored in the “re-heat” recovery chamber as it leaves the combustion chamber. After a period of time, the inlet/outlet valves switch position and now the contaminated process gas is redirected through the hot heat sink recovery chamber preheating it to within 5% of the combustion temperature before it enters the combustions chamber. In the combustion chamber the burner supplements the 5% bringing its temperature to 1,500 F° and converting the VOC to CO2 and water vapor. more...

RTOs, because of their unique ability to preheat incoming process fumes to within 5% of oxidation temperature using the unit’s exhaust heat, makes them the most economical, reliable and forgiving technology available to destroy most mixed hydrocarbon laden fumes (VOCs).

Each piece of equipment is custom engineered to your specifications by RTO specialty engineers with over forty years of application experience. This specific experience optimizes performance thus maximizing your investment. Robust construction materials along with tried and proven off the shelf components, assures longevity.

Our proven patented mechanical valve drive systems operates the flow control dampers smoothly in both two chambers and larger multi-chamber designs. No need for maintenance intensive pnuematic or hydraulic operators. This feature alone will substantially increase your savings by minimizing maintenance and equipment downtime.

Cycle-Therm believes that personnel safety is of the utmost importance. This is why our RTOs main fans are specifically put on the exit end of the RTO, generating an induced draft system.

To save money and/or/to increase competitiveness, or as a requirement for operation, many manufacturers place the main fan upstream (before) the RTO. This pushes the contaminated effluent through the RTO. While saving initial dollars in horsepower, this upstream placement generates both a maintenance and safety concern. Placing the fan upstream, the entire RTO is always under a positive condition; this means in the case of a combustion air, a site port, seal, or expansion joint wear failure, contaminated air with temperatures up to 1500 F° will escape from the system rather than inducing clean air in. This can generate a severe safety issue for employees.

Where maintenance is of concern, the placement of the fan upstream, or before the RTO means that, unlike the induced draft fan system, which is placed after the RTO handling clean air, the fan handles the dirty process air containing condensable hydrocarbons, plasticizers and particulate matter exiting the process line. The very contaminant that you are seeking to destroy now coats the fan wheel - continually unbalancing it, which in turn destroys the bearings, not to mention the condensed VOCs that degrade gaskets and seals softened by solvents.

Cycle-Therm, believing that gravity works, designs a vertical flow RTO, where the combustion chamber is placed over the recovery media and process gases flow moves vertically. The heat recovery media sits on a secure, well supported, porous stainless steel support mechanism. The media is held in place by gravity. Since this support mechanism, also known as the cold face, will, from time to time, see extremely high temperatures under upset conditions, it is mandatory that it is constructed in such a way to keep from sagging under the weight of the heat recovery media at these extreme conditions. These upset conditions, will include power failures and low flash point solvents (to name two) igniting at the base of the heat recovery bed. These upset conditions are a rule and not an exception. For this reason Cycle-Therm supplies a stainless steel, truss supported cold face capable of withstanding 1,400 F° for ½ hour.more...

A typical competitor’s fine-chamber RTO will have a minimum of 10 valve cylinder operators, while Cycle-Therm’s patented RTO only requires one. Given the fact that each valve on a typical RTO makes over 400,000 opening and closing individual valve cycles per year and over 4,000,000 combined unit cycles, makes it obvious that failures utilizing piston type cylinders will occur on a regular basis (and it does). It takes only one piston failure to shut down the unit. This is why piston cylinders have been removed from the Cycle-Therm system.

In order to minimize overall utility costs for both fuel and electric consumption, Cycle-Therm supplies a proprietary heat sink media known as Cell Stone® ULTRA. Cell Stone® ULTRA is manufactured of Silica-based 2300 F° refractory material. more...

The design of a RTO and system interface is made up of 20% theory and 80% art. While its concept is simple its design and application are not. All RTOs are very dynamic devices with never ending internal temperature, pressure and stress changes. The understanding of these changes and their incorporation into the device’s design has great bearing, not only on effectiveness and reliability of the device, but a profound effect on the process it is serving and vice versa.

Just like other thermal oxidizer technologies, the application of a RTO passes different challenges as it is applied to different manufacturing processes. The understanding of your process is paramount in its application. The salesman that sells his RTO on the basis that his unit is suitable for all applications is surely just looking for a fast sale letting the consequences fall where they may. Before placing an order, ask to sit down with their technical people.

In today’s market, RTOs are increasingly being purchased on the proposal’s price page not materials of construction nor its design and safety features. Like most things in life, “you get what you pay for.” Unfortunately, most financial people are the first to admit that they are not technically astute to know if everything is included that is required to interface the RTO with their process. Too often it is after the fact of picking the low bidder that the hidden requirements pop up, such as skipping start-up costs, external insulation, stainless steel support grids, transfer dampers, purge dampers, variable frequency drives, stack height, access platforms, installation, foundations, etc.

Much of Cycle-Therm’s expertise lies in the design and manufacture of patented electro-mechanical valve drive systems for either two chamber or multiple odd number chamber designs. Cycle-Therm’s two-chamber semi-prepackaged units feature a PATENTED quick acting (less than ½ second) poppet valve. This valve is cam operated, electrically driven and has completely removed the slam associated with poppets. Cycle-Therm’s multiple chamber (3 plus) units utilize a slow moving (75 second), cam operated, electric driven butterfly valve arrangement. Both systems are patented, both utilizing a single drive motor to transfer all valves, depending on type, in unison or in sequence. These patented systems have eliminated all the problems associated with the use of hydraulic and/or pneumatic piston valve operators used in other two-position and rotary RTOs. These very common problems include seal failures, line leaks, moisture freezing, sluggish winter operation, summer slamming, divergent piston speed, lead/lag valve disk movement, valve slamming deterioration, difficult to change finite PLC programming, overall valve contaminant leakage, air dryer replacement, solenoid failure, dedicated compressors and hydraulic pumps.

The two-chamber units use an intermittently operated four-way poppet valve. The valve ports, located within a cylindrical housing, are opened and closed by moving 2 flat flexible disks. The disks, which move vertically between the 4 port seats are attached to 2 spring-loaded shafts. The two shafts are driven by two opposed position cams, connected to a drive motor which indexes 180 F° each time it receives a signal from the RTO’s PLC. A VFD controls the drive motor accelerations and deceleration. This valve disk motion is preprogrammed within the VFD to accelerate the 2 disks for 0.1 seconds and decelerating for 0.3 seconds, bringing the disks from seat to seat in less than 0.5 seconds. Since the disk is electronically decelerated for 0.3 seconds they come to a coasting, non-slamming, repeatable stop. The use of the VFD and cam system is patented. The VFD and drive motor is “off the shelf.”

Since the patented poppet valve transfers both chamber from reheat to preheat simultaneously, in 500 milliseconds, the two-chamber RTO generic pressure spike and contaminant bypass is almost eliminated.