The recuperative thermal oxidizer is a thermal oxidizing system. It reduces fuel consumption by preheating the incoming air. Thin wall tubes transfer the heat from the exhaust air to the incoming air before it enters the combustion chamber. It consists of a combustion chamber with a shell and tube heat pre-heat exchanger. The high levels of destruction efficiency are achieved by the design of the system giving equal importance to three oxidation parameters such as temperature, residence time and turbulence. It recovers heat from the oxidizer exhaust and uses it to raise the temperature of the incoming process air. This reduces the energy needed to raise the VOC-laden air to combustion temperature