Patents Examined by Ken B. Rinehart
  • Patent number: 6213032
    Abstract: An in-furnace method and apparatus reduces nitrogen oxides in flue gas by injecting an oil water emulsion into flue gas so that the oil and water mixes with said flue gas. The emulsion has from 35% to 80% water and is injected in sufficient quantities to provide enough oil to promote a reaction between the nitrogen oxides in the flue gas and the oil, so as to reduce nitrogen oxide content of the flue gas and to maintain overall fuel lean conditions above the primary combustion zone. The emulsion preferably is atomized before injection and may also be injected in jet streams. Other materials such as limestone, ammonia and urea could be added to the oil water emulsion prior to injection.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 1999
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2001
    Assignee: Energy Systems Associates
    Inventors: Bernard P. Breen, James E. Gabrielson
  • Patent number: 6202574
    Abstract: A fossil fuel fired combustion apparatus and a method for operating the fossil fuel fired combustion apparatus are provided which offer the flexibility to use carbon dioxide (CO2) both as a desirable end product and as support to the combustion process. The method includes the step of introducing a substantially pure oxygen feed stream into the fossil fuel fired combustion apparatus and the step of combusting a fossil fuel in the presence of the substantially pure oxygen feed stream to produce a flue gas having carbon dioxide and water vapor as its two largest constituent elements by volume. The method also includes the step of passing the flue gas through an oxygen feed stream pre-heater at which heat from the flue gas is transferred to the oxygen feed stream. Furthermore, the method includes the step of separating the flue gas into an end product portion and a recycling portion.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 1999
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2001
    Assignee: ABB Alstom Power Inc.
    Inventors: Gregory N. Liljedahl, Mark Palkes
  • Patent number: 6199491
    Abstract: A refuse incinerating oven includes a refuse loading car, and a furnace body with lower and upper combustion chambers. The car is conveyed through the furnace body such that refuse loaded on the car can be ignited in the lower combustion chamber. The combustion exhaust generated in the lower combustion chamber flows into and is heated in the upper combustion chamber. A spraying tank is communicated with the upper combustion chamber for receiving the combustion exhaust. Water mist is sprayed to the combustion exhaust in the spraying tank so as to generate aerated water. The aerated water and the combustion exhaust flowing from the spraying tank are cooled as they flow into a reservoir. The aerated water is pumped from the reservoir to an upper end of a waterfall tank so as to generate a downwardly cascading water stream inside the waterfall tank. An exhaust port unit is connected to the upper end of the waterfall tank for sucking and releasing the combustion exhaust.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2000
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2001
    Inventor: Kun-Cheng Wu
  • Patent number: 6196144
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device, and a process for its charging, for carrying out high-temperature recycling for heterogeneously occurring waste in compact packages. The compact packages are introduced into a heated channel for evaporation of liquids and slightly fluid materials as well as to partly decompose them. The invention is characterized by a temperature insulating mouthpiece interconnecting the reactor and the channel for limiting the conduction of heat from the reactor to the channel. Accordingly, packages may be serially forced through the channel and into the reactor while maintaining the packages in sealing engagement with the channel to prevent reduction in the predetermined cross section in response to high temperatures transmitted from the reactor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1999
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2001
    Assignee: Thermoselect AG
    Inventor: Günter H. Kiss
  • Patent number: 6186079
    Abstract: In a delivery pipe for pulverized coal fines from a coal mill to a combustion chamber, a device for diffusing unevenly distributed coal flow evenly across the pipe. In a first form, the invention comprises a plurality of static, lateral, linear diffuser elements comprising rows of protrusions or teeth spaced laterally across the coal flow path in the pipe, preferably in a staggered and overlapping relationship. In a second form, the diffuser elements are rotatably mounted across the coal flow path in the pipe, and may be rotated at different speeds and in different directions. The diffuser elements spaced across the coal flow path in the pipe may be supplemented by peripherally-mounted diffuser elements at the inlet of that portion of the pipe or housing to provide an angled pre-diffusion of the coal flow from the sides of the pipe toward the lateral elements extending across the interior of the pipe.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 31, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2001
    Assignee: Sure Alloy Steel Corporation
    Inventors: Rickey E. Wark, John Anthony Nardi
  • Patent number: 6182584
    Abstract: A system and process to provide integrated control for the pyrolytic composition of organic (biomass) waste products especially for municipal solid waste systems. The system includes integrated control that monitors biomass waste stream throughout the entire system and the products produced therefrom and includes presorting, controlling the amount of material processed in a continuous manner, shredding, removing moisture in a continuous process that is controlled and providing the waste stream to the distillation unit for pyrolytic action where it is converted into gaseous fuel and a char residue. The gaseous fuel is scrubbed clean and monitored and stored and reused to provide heat to the system. The entire system may be self-sustaining and continuous with very little or no human intervention. An integrated real time computer control system includes sensors and measuring devices with all the major components to ensure integrated efficiency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2001
    Assignee: Environmental Solutions & Technology, Inc.
    Inventor: Craig T. Gaudio
  • Patent number: 6161574
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device for a fuel system, having a pressure chamber that communicates with a fuel connection and having a diaphragm that is installed at its outer peripheral region in a housing and partitions off the pressure chamber. A preassembled unit can be fastened, with the diaphragm built into the housing, on the basic body and the diaphragm can come to rest on a stop provided on the basic body. The device is intended in particular for regulating a pressure in a fuel system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 1998
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2000
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventors: Albert Gerhard, Willi Strohl, Jochen Rose, Erich Eiler
  • Patent number: 6161490
    Abstract: The present invention relates to a swirling-type melting furnace for gasifying combustible wastes and/or coal, and a method of gasifying wastes by the swirling-type melting furnace. In the swirling-type melting furnace (5), gaseous materials supplied to a combustion chamber (6) form a swirling flow which includes an outer swirling flow primarily containing particulate combustibles and an inner swirling flow primarily containing gaseous combustibles. Oxygen is supplied through an inner wall of the combustion chamber (6) to the outer swirling flow primarily containing the particulate combustibles for thereby accelerating gasification of the particulate combustibles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 15, 1999
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2000
    Assignees: Ebara Corporation, Ube Industries, Ltd.
    Inventors: Shosaku Fujinami, Shuichi Nagato, Takahiro Oshita, Shinichirou Chiba, Osamu Kameda, Toshio Fukuda, Yoshio Kosaka
  • Patent number: 6152054
    Abstract: A method and system for the use of waste coal fines to reduce nitrogen oxides emissions from a coal-fired cyclone boiler. A coal water slurry including waste coal fines is injected as a co-firing fuel into a cyclone barrel of the cyclone boiler to partially oxidize the coal water slurry in a central portion of the cyclone barrel where injected. This produces a reducing zone having reducing gas species that convert nitrogen oxides to diatomic nitrogen. The coal water slurry can alternatively be injected into the cyclone barrel from a secondary combustion air conduit. The evaporation of the water from the coal water slurry reduces the overall combustion temperature in the cyclone barrel, further reducing the production of nitrogen oxides.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 1, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2000
    Assignee: GE Energy and Environmental Research Corp.
    Inventors: Robert A. Ashworth, W. Richard Carson, Todd A. Melick, Todd M. Sommer
  • Patent number: 6152423
    Abstract: A system for sealing a head end of a cylinder to prevent a material flow through the cylinder. An o-ring inside the cylinder surrounds a piston when the piston is in a closed position inside the cylinder to prevent material from leaking into the cylinder around the piston. The o-ring is held in position by a groove inside the cylinder wall proximate a head end of the cylinder. A retainer ring has a first end held in place by a step protruding from the cylinder wall and a second end extending into a second end of the o-ring. The retainer ring applies a force to the retainer-ring which holds the o-ring inside the groove. The o-ring also applies a force to the retainer ring holding the o-ring in place.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 4, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2000
    Assignee: Micro Motion, Inc.
    Inventor: Jimmy Brooks Nichols
  • Patent number: 6152053
    Abstract: A method and an assembly for efficiently converting waste water to a gaseous state in a fossil fuel-fired power generation system is provided. The method includes feeding the slurry to the spray dryer reactor, the slurry having a predetermined ratio of liquid to absorbent, and controlling the feed rate of the slurry into the spray dryer reactor as a function of the monitored sulfur oxide level such that the sulfur oxide level is maintained within an acceptable range. The method also includes supplying supplemental liquid in the form of waste water into the spray dryer reactor in a non-proportionate manner relative to the feed of absorbent into the spray dryer reactor such that the ratio of liquid to absorbent in the spray dryer reactor changes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 28, 2000
    Assignee: ABB Alstom Power Inc.
    Inventors: Thomas S. Czarnecki, Gustave E. Friedrichs, Douglas F. Grabowski, Michael C. Tanca
  • Patent number: 6148842
    Abstract: The compensation element is compensating for temperature-conditioned length changes of an object. An injection valve that is fully functional in the entire range of the operating temperatures of a motor requires a device that compensates thermally conditioned length changes of the mechanical components (piezo-electric actuator, valve lifter, housing, etc.). This device should be capable of absorbing great forces and allow a stiff bearing of the actuator. The compensation element (3) has an oil-filled chamber (21) is composed of an actuator-side upper part (18), of a lower part (19) supported on a stiff bearing (valve housing 17), and of a structure (annular seal element 20) sealing the chamber (21) and yielding in an axial direction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2000
    Assignee: Siemens Aktiengesellschaft
    Inventors: Andreas Kappel, Randolf Mock, Hans Meixner
  • Patent number: 6148744
    Abstract: A method of operating a pulverized coal-firing furnace so as to achieve no more than a predetermined variation in the instantaneous vertical velocities of the flow exiting a combustion chamber of the furnace is provided. The method includes, in one variation thereof, providing a series of lower compartments for introducing therethrough one of air, fuel, and air and fuel into the combustion chamber. At least one upper compartment is disposed above the topmost compartment of the series of lower compartments at a relative disposition to the topmost compartment in a spacing range between a contiguous disposition to a more spaced disposition which is no more than twice the average spacing between any given compartment and an adjacent compartment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 21, 2000
    Assignee: ABB Alstom Power Inc.
    Inventors: Paul J. Chapman, John F. Drennen, Michael L. Kaplan, Majed A. Toqan
  • Patent number: 6145453
    Abstract: In order to carry out the method for controlling the firing rate of the combustion installation, the fire grate is equipped with a plurality of undergrate zones. In order to determine the control signal, the undergrate zone at the beginning of the main combustion zone is equipped with the corresponding measurement devices, namely a temperature sensor and a pressure sensor and the associated air supply line is equipped with an airflow measuring device. A further pressure sensor is provided in the furnace space so that the static pressure difference between the undergrate zone and the furnace space can be determined. The measured values from this measurement equipment are supplied to a central computer ZR which outputs, if necessary taking account of a flow coefficient .alpha.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 22, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2000
    Assignee: Martin GmbH fuer Unwelt- und Energietechnik
    Inventors: Johannes Martin, Peter Spichal
  • Patent number: 6145454
    Abstract: A furnace of a pulverized coal firing boiler includes a coutant bottom and walls intersecting with the coutant bottom and extending generally vertically therefrom to enclose and define an interior combustion chamber. A first windbox disposed in a corner of the combustion chamber includes therein a vertical array of consecutively spaced coal compartments. A coal nozzle of the lowermost coal compartment of the vertical array is disposed at least ten feet from the intersection of the walls with the coutant bottom. A second coal nozzle is disposed within a second adjacent coal compartment at a first vertical spacing to the first coal nozzle; a third coal nozzle is disposed within a third adjacent coal compartment at a second vertical spacing to the second coal nozzle; and a fourth coal nozzle is disposed within a fourth adjacent coal compartment at a third vertical spacing to the second coal nozzle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 1999
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2000
    Assignee: Duke Energy Corporation
    Inventor: Joseph J. Barna
  • Patent number: 6145541
    Abstract: A four-way selector valve comprises a valve case connected with a first pipe, a separate chamber communicating with a second pipe, a first valve seat ring in communicating path between a connecting portion of a third pipe and a space of said valve case, a second valve seat ring in a communicating path between a connecting portion of a fourth pipe and said space, a moveable valve element assembly for alternating co-operation with said first and second valve seat rings, and a valve drive means connected to said moveable valve element assembly to at least selectively interconnect said first pipe either with said third pipe or said fourth pipe and simultaneously the remaining one of said third or fourth pipes with said second pipe, wherein first and second valve disks are pressed essentially in the direction of the axis of the associated valve seat ring in closing direction by remanent forces onto said first and second valve seat rings, and first and second cylindrical and hollow valves are moveable substantially
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2000
    Assignee: TGK Co. Ltd.
    Inventor: Hisatoshi Hirota
  • Patent number: 6145536
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device for a fuel supply system, having a pressure chamber that communicates with a fuel connection, and having a diaphragm built in on its outer peripheral region in a basic body which partitions off the pressure chamber, wherein the diaphragm is fastened in the peripheral region with a spring ring that is under initial tension and is retained on the basic body.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 1998
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2000
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventors: Albert Gerhard, Willi Strohl, Jochen Rose, Erich Eiler
  • Patent number: 6138586
    Abstract: A method for incineration and an incinerator for composition of exhaust gases containing organic substances, the incinerator comprising an elongated, preferably cylindrical combustion chamber, an oil or gas fired burner with a flame-tube axially centrally at one end of the combustion chamber, a flue gas outlet pipe provided at the end of the combustion chamber opposite to the burner for the flue gases produced during incineration, and an inlet conduit connected to the side of the combustion chamber for the exhaust gases to be decomposed, wherein the inlet feed pipe opens or discharges in the combustion chamber in proximity to the burner. The incinerator is characterized by a conduction/deflection plate (36), adjacent the input conduit (24), for pre-heating the exhaust gases flowing by.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 3, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2000
    Assignee: Utec Luftreinigung + Warmeruckgewinnung-Anlagenbau GmbH
    Inventor: Johannes Reichart
  • Patent number: 6138588
    Abstract: A method of operating a pulverized coal-firing furnace is provided which includes injecting air from an upper compartment generally in opposition to a swirling fireball. The method also provides the step of sensing a temperature characteristic of one side of a convection pass of the furnace. The sensed value, in accordance with the method of the present invention, is then evaluated to determine if the sensed value of the temperature characteristic exceeds an allowable value. In response to a determination that the temperature characteristic exceeds the allowable value, the momentum of the air injected through the upper air compartment is changed. After the step of changing the momentum of the air injected through the upper air compartment, the temperature characteristic of the one convection pass location is sensed to obtain a post adjustment value of the temperature characteristic and compared to an allowable value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 10, 1999
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2000
    Assignee: ABB Alstom Power Inc.
    Inventors: Paul J. Chapman, Michael L. Kaplan, Majed A. Toqan
  • Patent number: 6138710
    Abstract: A vent disc for a container is provided. The vent disc has a concavely curved domed central panel with a plurality of perforations extending therethrough along radii that form the concave curvature of the domed central panel. The domed central panel can have a plurality of upwardly extending depressions therein that leave residual central panel above the depressions. The depressions have center lines that are coincident with radii that form the concave curvature of the domed central panel. The perforations extend through the residual of central panel material. Methods and apparatus are also provided for forming the vent disc with the perforations and depressions therein.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 1998
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2000
    Assignee: Playtex Products, Inc.
    Inventors: Richard S. Chomik, Joseph Clark, Francis X. Manganiello