Pergamon Int. Comra. Heat Mass Transfer, Vol.26, No. 7, pp. 1029-1040, 1999 Copyright© 1999Elsevier ScienceLtd Printedin the USA. All rights reserved 0735-1933/99/S-seefront mater PII S0735-1933(99)00092-5 THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF AQUEOUS RESIDUES INCINERATION WITH OXYGEN ENRICHED FLAMES P.T. Lacava, A.P. Pimenta Instituto Tecnol6gieo de Aeronhutica (ITA) S~io Jos~ dos Campos, CEP 12228-900, SP, Brazil C.A. Gurgel Veras lnstituto Naeional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) Rod. Pres. Dutra, km. 40, Cachoeira Paulista, CEP 12630-000, SP, Brazil J.A. Carvalho Jr. Universidade Estadual Paulista - Campus de Guaratinguet~ Guaratingueth, CEP 12500-000, SP, Brazil (Comrnunicated by J.P. Hartnett and W.J. Minkowycz) ABSTRACT The use of oxygen to enrich the oxidizer can be an attractive alternate to increase incineration rates of a combustion chamber originally designed to operate with air. For a certain fuel flow rate, if some incineration parameters are held constant (as combustion chamber temperature, turbulence level, and residence time), an increase of incineration rates becomes possible with injection of oxygen. This work presents a theoretical evaluation of combustion air enrichment in a combustion chamber designed to incinerate aqueous residues using methane as fuel and air as oxidizer. Detailed chemistry was employed to predict pollutants formation. The overall process was investigated using the PSR routine from the CHEMKIN library. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd Introduction The insertion of oxygen in the oxidizer stream can be an attractive means of increasing incineration rates of a combustion chamber originally designed to operate with air. For a certain fuel flow rate, if some incineration parameters are held constant (as combustion chamber temperature, turbulence level and residence time), an increase of incineration rates becomes possible with injection of oxygen [1,2]. Nitrogen is an inert gas, so it absorbs heat that could otherwise be utilized in the incineration process. By substituting pure oxygen for a portion or all of the combustion air, the process will undergo with reduced overall gas flow rate and improved thermal efficiency [3]. In most waste incineration processes 1029