Ceramics were being pyrolysed inside an incinerator at a textile mill when a high-temperature alarm went off on the incinerator’s outlet at 7:10 p.m. Internal emergency services saw sparks and red-hot metal. They put out the fire with a fire extinguisher. The emergency stop was activated to cut off the supply of gas and close the valves. This confined the combustion to the inside of the incinerator. Firefighters arrived at 7:40 p.m. and made sure that the fire was out. The incinerator was monitored overnight and temperature readings were taken. After being cooled, the incinerator was cleaned from 26 to 29 December while the mill was closed for the week for maintenance. A 1-m3 layer of combustion residue was disposed of via an approved channel.

The incinerator was put back in service when the mill was started back up on 3 January 2018, but the alarm went off again on 10 January. The refractory ceramics were found to be extensively fouled. The decision was taken to perform low-temperature pyrolysis cycles first and then increase the heat during subsequent cycles. However, during a low-temperature pyrolysis cycle, the temperature inside one of the incinerator’s chambers rose abnormally and very rapidly. The cycle was turned off. The refractory ceramics were so heavily fouled that the residues risked igniting. The fouling was caused by the production of large amounts of high-solid and water-based coatings. The pyrolysis cycle was not optimal for such products.

The operator decided not to restart the incinerator. It chose instead to replace all 28 t of refractory ceramics inside the scrubber, replace the grating supporting the ceramic beds, and adjust the pyrolysis cycle in accordance with the installer’s suggestions. This operation, which is costly and time-consuming, was expected to take between three and four weeks. The scrubber’s shutdown lead to increased VOC emissions.

The operator also took the following measures:

• technical alarms are now relayed to the guardhouse;
• there is now a procedure to follow in case of a problem;
• the threshold of the alarm for the temperatures at the incinerator’s outlet has been lowered.