Patent ID: 7396454

Claim:
Apparatus for cleaning tar-bearing waste water, e.g. a waste mixture of water and hydrocarbons, e.g. polyaromatic hydrocarbons and phenols, comprising: a boiler or evaporator for evaporation of the waste mixture, a separator which receives the vaporized waste mixture from said boiler or evaporator and which separates the vaporized waste mixture into a high-boiling-point part and a remaining evaporated part, a reactor which receives the remaining evaporated part and which cracks the remaining evaporated part into a cracked mixture, a heat exchanger located between the boiler or evaporator and the reactor for performing a heat exchange between the remaining evaporated part flowing towards the reactor and the cracked mixture leaving the reactor, and a connection feeding the cracked mixture leaving the reactor and the heat exchanger to the boiler or evaporator, thereby extracting heat energy from the cracked mixture for the evaporation of the waste mixture.