Text Box: CORECO® Rotary Retort Furnaces for Catalyst Reclamation
 

Text Box: The air required to remove moisture and oxidize the carbon and organic contaminants on the catalyst enters the rotary retort through a connection provided on the screw feeder. An automatic valve controls the amount of air entering the rotary retort as required to maintain the setpoint oxygen concentration (typically 10%) in the rotary retort exhaust gases. The processed catalyst material exits the rotary retort and drops through a discharge chute into the rotary cooler drum (H). In the rotary cooler drum, the catalyst carrier material is cascaded repeatedly. Heat from the catalyst material is transferred to the cooling air flowing through the cooling drum in the opposite direction of the material flow (counterflow). The temperature of the catalyst material leaving the cooling drum will be approximately 10 to 30°F above ambient temperature. Fines in the catalyst material are filtered through a screen at the leaving end of the cooling drum and are collected in the fines hopper (I).  The larger catalyst material flows over the fines screen and exits the end of the cooling drum (J) where they can be collected in a container or transferred by a conveyor. An exhaust fan draws the dust-laden cooling air from the cooler transfer hood (G), along with the exhaust gases from the rotary retort exhaust hood (F). The cooling air and retort exhaust gases are directed through a pollution control system before being discharged to atmosphere. The pollution control system typically consists of dust collection equipment but may also include a packed bed scrubber if halogenated or sulfur bearing compounds are expected in the spent catalyst material.