4. Hydrothermal oxidation processes

Hydrothermal Oxidation (HTO) processes are aimed at treating organic waste in aqueous phase, with concentrations ranging from 1 to 20% in water; at over 20%, the waste has a sufficiently high net calorific value (NCV) to be suitable for conventional incineration technologies; at less than 1%, hydrothermal oxidation processes face competition from adsorption processes such as activated carbons or biologically-based processes. Nevertheless, there are special cases where hydrothermal oxidation technology is applied to pure organic liquids; this is the case for certain liquid organic wastes from the remediation of nuclear facilities; there are also cases where very dilute wastes are addressed to hydrothermal oxidation, with a PCI contribution via the addition of a co-fuel to the reaction medium, for example.