Patent ID: 6964729

Claim:
An improved method of oxidizing undesirable compounds residing within a liquid based gas processing system comprising: (a) first heating a liquid absorbent containing undesirable compounds within a reboiler chamber to its boiling temperature, which is a temperature above the boiling point of water and below the temperature of degradation of said absorbent, to produce vaporized effluents; (b) condensing said effluents within a condenser; (c) transporting residual uncondensed effluents to and through a vaporizer wherein said effluents are first heated to re-vaporize any ambient condensed liquids; (d) transporting and introducing said re-vaporized effluents to a thermal oxidizer combustion chamber combined and integrated with said reboiler but fluidly separate therefrom wherein said re-vaporized effluents are second heated to a temperature necessary to effectuate virtually complete thermal destruction of undesirable compounds; (e) transporting and introducing said thermally destroyed effluents from said thermal oxidizer combustion chamber to and through the internal portions of a heat recovery tube bundle, said introduction and transport generating external tube surface temperatures sufficient to raise a liquid glycol based absorbent in contact therewith to its boiling temperature; (f) transporting said second heated effluent from said tube bundle to and through a reboiler vent stack; and (g) means to regulate said external tube surface temperatures by a controlled venting mechanism having a venting mechanism in a vent stack of said thermal oxidizer chamber coordinated with a vent mechanism in said reboiler vent stack.