Thermal oxidizer is usually designed for the use by engineers, operators, maintenance, safety and training personnel from hydrocarbon and chemical processing plants as well as production operations that deal with hazardous and non-hazardous organic waste disposal as a part of their daily operations.

Thermal oxidizer can be sometimes divided into non-flame thermal oxidizer, which uses slow heating to incinerate pollutants, and direct flame thermal oxidizer, which uses plumes of flame. Thermal oxidizer may also include a process called catalytic oxidization. In catalytic oxidizer, organic compounds pass over a support material coated with a catalyst, commonly a noble metal such as platinum or rhodium that encourages the pollutants in the air to burn. Catalytic oxidizer can break down pollutants at much lower temperatures than thermal oxidizers lacking catalytic action.

The most significant distinction between types of thermal oxidizer is whether they are regenerative thermal oxidizer or recuperative thermal oxidizer. Regenerative thermal oxidizer uses ceramic heat transfer beds to recover as much energy as possible from the oxidization process -- often as much as 90% to 95%. These heat transfer beds act as heat exchangers, coupled to a retention chamber where the organics are oxidized. A recuperative thermal oxidizer uses a heat exchanger in the form of a plate, shell, or tube to heat intake air with the thermal energy from the oxidization process. These systems are less efficient than regenerative thermal oxidizer, only recovering about 50% to 75% of the generated heat.

Regenerative thermal oxidizer provides greater efficiency and effective volatile organic compounds (voc) control for a wide range of processes. This type of cleaning equipment offers superior heat recovery characteristics versus any other oxidation system. This regenerative thermal oxidizer generally uses recovered energy to pre-heat incoming process air to oxidation temperatures. This air pollution control equipment is particularly effective for process streams with low solvent loading. To meet the specific application needs of their customer group, many manufacturers are providing this thermal oxidizer in various forms and special packages for spectrum purposes. For higher efficiency of such oxidizer, a heat up recovery system can also be attached. By doing this, combustion heat can be recovered and can be later used in regenerative thermal oxidizer.