Our SuperOx® System
What is SCWO?
SCWO is short for SuperCritical Water Oxidation. Aquarden’s SCWO system – SuperOx® – is an innovative wastewater treatment technology. Aquarden’s proprietary SuperOx® system makes use of the properties of water in its supercritical phase to completely destroy harmful pollutants.
Water is in its supercritical phase at temperatures and pressures above 374 °C and 221 bar – the thermodynamic critical point of water.
In the supercritical phase toxic organics are easily dissolved. By introducing oxygen, even the toughest organic environmental pollutants are destroyed within seconds leaving only non-toxic compounds.
Aquarden’s SuperOx® System
Aquarden’s patented reactor heats and pressurizes wastewater above 374 °C and 221 bar. The oxidation process is sustained by continuously adding oxygen to the supercritical wastewater. The reactor is specifically engineered for handling the aggressive SCWO environment to treat highly concentrated toxic wastestreams. See more on the applications page.
SuperOx® Advantages
- Industrial scale SCWO plant
- Throughput 5 tonnes/day per unit
- SCWO of liquid wastes and particle slurries
- In-situ neutralization of mineral acids
- Operates solely on electricity. No fossil co-fuels required
- Continuous flow
- Fully automated with integrated monitoring of critical process parameters
- Patented reactor engineered for the aggressive SCWO environment
- Modular design
At Aquarden we believe all our planet’s man-made water problems can be solved sustainably today.
Why SCWO is better
Aquarden has developed and refined the SCWO-technology through years of research and development from early concept through to today’s SCWO industrial systems. Our SuperOx® is a leap forward in cleantech technology as it fully destroys organic pollutants.
Studies also document that SCWO is the more cost-efficient alternative to traditional methods, such as incineration, chemical oxidations, etc…
- All organics are eliminated producing harmless CO2 and water
- Organically bound halogens and sulphur are fully broken down to benign soluble salts
- Organic compounds containing nitrogen are oxidized to harmless N2 gas
- The process does not produce unwanted toxic by-products
What Types Of Wastewater Can SCWO Treat?
Aquarden’s SuperOx SCWO technology is a powerful process for dealing with tough hazardous organic compounds produced across a variety of industries like Chemical, Pharmaceuticals & Biotech, Aerospace & Defence. As SCWO completely destroys all organics, our technology can be applied to a wide variety of wastewater types:
- All PFAS compounds e.g. PFOS & PFOA
- Saturated adsorbents
- Pesticides
- Solvents
- Phenols & chlorinated phenols
- Hormones and hormone disrupting compounds
- Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients
- And the list continues…