Das Projekt "Kostenguenstige Destrukturierung von toxischen organischen Abfaellen mittels ueberkritischer hydrothermaler Oxidierung" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH Technik und Umwelt, Institut für Technische Chemie, Bereich Chemisch-Physikalische Verfahren durchgeführt. Industries such as pulp and paper, chemical, pharmaceuticals, food processing, etc produces large quantities of aqueous effluents heavily loaded with organic matter and hazardous substances. Heavy metals and chlorine compounds in many cases exceed present recommended levels. The available treatment processes result in large amounts of secondary wastes (sludge, ash, etc) which have to be disposed of a class 1 sites which are becoming ever more rare and expensive. Moreover these present treatment processes in many cases cannot meet the environmental standards required for effluents in the future and are encountering increasing resistance from local population. The principle objective of this project is the development of a continous waste destruction process which will back down highly toxic or hazardous compounds into harmless substances such as carbon dioxide and water, whereas other chemical elements like chlorine, sulfure, heavy metals, etc remain in the water and can be recovered if useful. An expensive special off gas cleaning comparable to conventional incineration is not necessary. The proposed process is therefore advantageously applicable to a broad range of effluents, the organic load of which is typically reduced to 50 mg/l or less in terms of COD and BOD. Further objectives are to prove the feasibility of treating industrial quantities of waste by bench scale operation of several hundreds of litres per day, resolution of corrosion problems and proving of system for continous removal of salts. Another objective is definition and testing of appropriate pretreatment of different effluent types. Preliminary cost estimations show that cost savings of more than 100 ECU per ton can be expected. Laboratory experiments have successfully demonstrated the principles and the feasibility of these process steps on a small scale. It is a major objective of this proposal to demonstrate on a bench scale the cost effectiveness of the SUPERHYDROX-process which is a result of supercritical conditions and operating temperatures above 500 C (reaction kinetics, high and complete conversion). In addition, the exothermine of such an optimised oxidation process can as sure an energetically self-sustaining process and provide heat recovery. The consortium will establish a research cooperation between CEA in France and Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe in Germany with industrial effluent supply, equipment conceptions and know with respect to waste specifications and economy by partners in Sweden and Belgium, STORA and SOLVAY. The successful completion of this project will result in a technical concept and optimised operation parameters for a industrial SUPERHYDROX-plant which shows distinctly advantages for the European Union compared with similar technologies being developed in the USA and Japan.