Abstract: The improved incinerator is a concentric elongated tubular array, with an outer closed tubular housing or shell, an annular tubular heat exchanger in the form of a bundle of spaced open ended tubes inside the housing and spaced inwardly therefrom to define an annular air passageway therebetween and front and rear spaces, and a tubular combustion chamber having an open front end and an open rear end. The front end thereof is necked down and in the form of a small diameter tubular inlet immediately downstream of the combustion zone in the combustion chamber. A fuel line, a fluidized waste material line and an ignition system pass through the inlet into the combustion zone, along with heated air to initiate and maintain the desired complete combustion of the waste material. The air is preheated by blowing it into the passageway and around and over the heat exchange tubes, before passing it into the combustion zone.

Abstract: The method of incinerating hazardous materials and fluidizable wastes, such as liquids, gases, entrained solid particles, fumes and slurries, utilizes an incinerator in the form of a sudden expansion burner. The incinerator has a relatively small diameter cylindrical inlet pipe connected by a circular plate to a relatively larger diameter elongated cylindrical combustion chamber. A waste injection line passes into the incinerator adjacent the inlet pipe for transfer of incineratable waste therethrough and into the upstream end of the combustion chamber. Air inlets connected to a blower also terminate adjacent the inlet pipe for supplying air at a high flow rate to the combustion chamber. One or more fuel nozzles extend through the plate into the combustion chamber to provide an overstoichiometric concentration of fuel adjacent the plate. The fuel is ignited through an electrically powered, fuel supplied ignitor extending into the combustion chamber through the inlet pipe.