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Waste Incineration & Heat Recovery

at Roche Ireland Ltd.

Andrew Carden

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• Roche Ireland Ltd: Bulk Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Site.

• Operates under an Integrated Pollution Control License issued by Environmental Protection Agency.

• Emissions to Atmosphere

• Emissions to Water

• Emissions to Land

Background

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• Legislation

• 1987 Air Pollution Act

• Air Emissions within EPA Limits

Legislation

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• A number of technologies examined to meet legislative requirements

• Criteria for Technology Selection

• Varying Calorific Load

• Varying Volumetric Load

• Organochlorides

• Wide Range Compounds

• Economic Factors

• Emission Limits

• Selected Technology: Direct Fired Thermal Incineration

Technology Selection

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• Air Emissions Reduction Project consisted of two parts:

• Fume Collection system

• Incinerator Package

Project Overview

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ticalsFume Collection System

•Volatile Organic Carbon Vapour Collection

•Collect VOC Vapours from Chemical Reactors, Dryers

•Network of piping with safety equipment:-

•Flow, Pressure and Oxygen monitoring

•Deflagration, Detonation, Hydraulic and Dynamic Flame Arrestors to meet German TRbF 100 standard

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ticalsFume Collection System

- 1 0

UEL

FlammableRegion

LEL

50% MOC

MOC

•Vent collection designed to

•Prevent Explosion

•Contain Explosion

High Oxygen

Low OxygenHigh Solvent

Low Solvent

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Contain ExplosionPrevent Explosion

Flammability Diagram X = Areas of Operation

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• Kraft, Energie & Umwelttechnik (KEU)

• 10.6 MW

• Steam Generation using waste heat from incinerator

• Incineration of Waste Liquids from Site Production Processes

• Odour Reductions by Incinerating Biological Waste Treatment off gases

Incinerator Package

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ticalsIncinerator Package

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• Operational Qualification Tests:

• To Test Incinerator to Design Limit

• Contractual Test Burns with KEU

• Test Burns with EPA

• Examples of Tests:

• Destruction Removal Effieiency including HCl removal and Dioxin formation

• High and Low Thermal Capacity

• NOx removal

Commissioning: Test Burns

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• Legal Compliance

• IPC licence.

• EC Directive.

• Heat Recovery

• Capacity of 10,000 kg/hr of steam

• Current generation at approx 5000 kg/hr, meeting large proportion of site demands

• Reduction in offsite waste incineration costs

• Incineration up to 760 kg/hr on site

Benefits

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• January 1999: Change from Heavy fuel oil to Diesel

• June 2000: Air reduction leading to Fuel reduction

• June 2000: Stack gas plume elimination

• December 2000: New state of the art in situ HCl laser analyser

• Future

• July 2003: Change from Diesel to Natural gas

Continuous Improvements