Abstract: Method for gasifying carbonaceous fine-grained or sludgy material, such as powdered brown coal or biomass, in fixed bed reactors. Carbonaceous material to be gasified is pre-heated and dried, and mixed with coarse-grained, non-carbonaceous ballast material. This mixing is carried out prior to, during or after the pre-heating and drying of the carbonaceous material, to thereby obtain a pre-heated and dried mixture of the carbonaceous material and the ballast material, and to also obtain vapor from the pre-heating and drying of the same. The heated and dried mixture is contacted with a gasification medium within a fixed bed reactor, at a temperature sufficiently high to gasify the carbonaceous material. The gasification medium includes the vapor from the pre-heating and drying of the carbonaceous material. The ballast material provides sufficient gas permeability to the fine-grained or sludgy carbonaceous material, to permit gasification thereof in the fixed bed reactor.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for cooling hot bulk material, such as red-hot coke, sinter, or clinker, and, in particular, for relieving a gas stream flowing through the hot bulk material to cool the same includes continuously charging hot bulk material into a cooler housing and onto the free surface of spread bulk material already contained within the cooler housing and cooling the hot bulk material by absorbing and removing the intensive heat radiation radiated from the surface of the hot bulk material in a radiation cooling surface extending over in facing relationship to the free surface of hot bulk material.

Abstract: In a method for treating liquid dross wherein the dross is situated in a skimming trough and charged into a rotating, substantially horizontal cooling pipe through which it passes so that the dross is cooled to a temperature below the melting point thereof to obtain a granulated form, the dross is charged from the skimming tank into the cooling pipe and passed therethrough substantially in the absence of air or oxygen whereupon the cooled granulated dross is subjected to an autogenous grinding process, the ground dross then being separated into a granulated metal fraction and a fine-grained fraction. Apparatus for performing the method of the invention includes a hood located over the inlet side of the cooling pipe so that the entrance of air into the pipe is substantially prevented. The skimming trough is sealingly engaged to the hood so that the dross is charged from the skimming trough into the cooling pipe without any substantial contact with the air.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for cooling hot bulk material, such as glowing coke, clinker, or sinter material, include a vertically oriented cooling tank into which the hot bulk material is introduced and in which the material flows downwardly under gravity and is discharged from an outlet. At least two partial currents of cooling gas are fed into the cooling tank at respective feeding points therein, the feeding point being respectively arranged one over the other so that the cooling gas fed into the tank flows upwardly around the bulk material as the latter flows downwardly to cool the same with the cooling gas being correspondingly heated.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for mixing a first relatively cool gas current and a second relatively hot gas current in a manner such that the resulting gas current has a relatively uniform temperature immediately subsequent to the point of mixing. The first gas current is separated into first and second partial gas currents, the first partial gas current being directed to a conduit which branches from the conduit in which the second partial gas current is directed. The first partial gas current is directed at a relatively high velocity into a central nozzle in fluid communication with the second gas current while the second partial gas current is directed into a ring nozzle which also is in fluid communication with the second gas current and which concentrically surrounds the central nozzle. The flow of the first gas current is regulated by throttling the second partial gas current while maintaining the flow of the first partial gas current.