Enviro-Klean equipment is engineered and manufactured in North America, and meets UL, CSA and European CE standards.
All machine components are designed for years of productive service. (The KM-2 pictured on the right was built in 1994 and is still in operation.) The drives and gear boxes used to power the screw conveyors and augers are top-of-the line Eurodrive and Baldor. The electronics are Siemens. The fuel system is Eclipse. The heavy-duty trailers feature air-ride suspensions. Enviro-Klean is committed to providing competitive, state-of-the-art thermal remediation equipment that meets or exceed the toughest environmental standards world-wide.
KM-4 Series of Thermal Desorbers
Fuel Costs
The cost of fuel is the largest single expense in a thermal remediation project, and often is the difference in choosing between thermal desorption and landfilling. A typical thermal desorber uses 40 liters (11 US gallons) of fuel per ton to heat the soil, volatilize the hydrocarbons and soil moisture, and further heat the airstream to convert the hydrocarbons into water and carbon dioxide.
For the same throughput, the KM-4 uses 20 liters (5 US gallons) of fuel per ton.
The annual fuel saving based on 100K tons of throughput, is 2 million liters (520,000 US gallons).
Therefore, if the Enviro-Klean KM-4 design meets your remediation requirements, the fuel savings more than recover the capital cost of the equipment within a few years.
And together with the KM-4's portability and ease of operation, these fuel savings have the potential to create soil remediation opportunities that were formerly too cumbersome or costly to manage.
How It Works
The Enviro-Klean KM-4 is a patented high temperature thermal desorption system for removing hydrocarbon (petroleum) contaminants from the soil.
It's a mobile system with the processing equipment mounted on a highway-legal low-bed trailer and the feed/discharge system on its own trailer. The system can be easily moved from site-to-site and set up in a matter of hours. Its small footprint allows the KM-4 to operate in very restricted areas and process material right on-site. Throughput primarily depends on five factors:
- Type of soil
- Moisture content of soil
- Type of contaminant
- Level of contaminant
- Clean-up criteria
Under controlled conditions, this system can
- Have a nominal throughput of 20 tons per hour
- Process soil with contaminant levels up to 35,000 ppm (mg/kg)
- Clean soil down to non-detect levels
- Handle moisture levels of 20% or more
Loader and Conveyor
Soil is loaded into the feed system dump hopper and screened to <5cm (2 inches) by a rotating trommel screen. It is weighed and transported by belt conveyor to the in-feed hopper on top the machine. Then it's conveyed through the preheater and deposited into the KM-4's patented material processor.
Soil through Burner
Material is quickly heated to control temperatures in the Enviro-Klean KM-4 processor. The patented cascading system allows the soil to fall like a waterfall through several heated chambers. Heat is supplied using a fuel or gas burner at the bottom of the processor. It then travels upward through the soil curtains in the heat chambers, vaporizing the contaminants.
Thermal Oxidizer
An induction fan pulls the vapors from the top of the processor through a dust recycling system to remove particulate, and into the thermal oxidizer. Here, a secondary burner destroys the contaminants by heating them to over 1600°F (900°C).
Filtration System and Exhaust Stack
The clean gasses are then cooled in an air-to-air heat exchanger and pass through a filtration system where the balance of the airborne particulate is removed prior to the clean air passing through an exhaust stack to atmosphere. Continuous or spot air emission monitoring can be done at the stack to show the emissions meet all regulations.
Soils Discharge System
The soil, meanwhile, continues downward through the processor and exits the machine through a pugmill with a soil rehydration/cooling system and then onto a discharge conveyor to be stacked or piled for use as backfill or other purposes. The discharge temperature of the soil determines the level of cleaning achieved, hence the KM-4 operation speed is tuned by adjusting the soil discharge temperature.
Major Components
- Feed system, including dump hopper, trommel, weigh belt, feed conveyor
- Feed hopper with laser-controlled material seal
- Preheater for incoming soil
- Four chamber primary treatment unit
- Pugmill for soil cooling and rehydration
- Multi-clone for fines removal
- Thermal oxidizer for up to 2-second residence time
- Air-to-air, 2-pass heat exchanger
- High temperature baghouse with pleated elements
- I.D. fan
- Air compressor
- Sound-attenuated genset
- Gas/fuel burners
- Automatic and/or Manual Control System
- Variable frequency drive motors
- Various heat, temperature and pressure sensors
