Patent ID: 8316922

Claim:
A thermal postcombustion device comprising: a) a housing which has an inlet for exhaust air to be cleaned and an outlet for cleaned air further partitioned into a main housing and a secondary housing; b) a combustion chamber arranged in the main housing; c) a heating device generating a reaction temperature in the combustion chamber; d) a heat exchanger in the main housing comprising a plurality of heat exchanger pipes which enclose the combustion chamber; e) a preheat exchanger, located in the secondary housing more remote from the combustion chamber than the heat exchanger and spatially separated from the heat exchanger and being interconnected with the heat exchanger by at least one connecting line, communicatively controlled by a flap, via which the exhaust air to be cleaned coming from the inlet passes through the preheat exchanger then through the heat exchanger and is guided on a path to the combustion chamber and the cleaned air coming from the combustion chamber is guided on a path to the outlet; wherein f) an apparatus is provided with which, in a first cleaning mode, selectively at least a part of the cleaned air, at a temperature of at least 700 degrees Celsius, bypasses of the heat exchanger and is supplied directly from the combustion chamber to the preheat exchanger so that adherent residues, which are deposited by the exhaust air in the preheat exchanger, can be removed without interrupting the cleaning of the exhaust air to be cleaned.