Abstract: A rotatable filtration apparatus includes a partially submergible, rotatable filter in a shape of a torus having a central axis of rotation, the filter comprising an upper half and a lower half, with the lower half comprising a permeable membrane, the permeable membrane comprising at least one pore configured to pass a filtrate while excluding solids, a rotation motor configured to rotate the filter about the central axis of rotation, an anchor configured to anchor the rotatable filter in a body of liquid, and a pump to extract the filtrate from the filtrate chamber into a filtrate line.

Abstract: A rotatable filtration apparatus includes a partially submergeable, rotatable filter in a shape of a torus having a central axis of rotation, the filter comprising an upper half and a lower half, with the lower half comprising a permeable membrane, the permeable membrane comprising at least one pore configured to pass a filtrate while excluding solids, a rotation motor configured to rotate the filter about the central axis of rotation, an anchor configured to anchor the rotatable filter in a body of liquid, and a pump to extract the filtrate from the filtrate chamber into a filtrate line.

Abstract: A shear retort mill for slow ablative pyrolysis features friction heating between shearing surfaces on a rotating disk and a static or rotating cylindrical drum enclosing the disk. A feed enters the workspace between the rotating disk and the bottom of the drum through a hollow feed shaft coupled to the rotating disk. Preferably, an auger compacts and moves the feed downward, and a shredder reduces the feed's particle size. The feed is increasingly ground and pyrolyzed as it is forced between the drum and disk shearing surface. As the dense processed material extrudes at the edge of the workspace, the gases and liquid products are forced inward by the barrier of dense solids. A static exhaust pipe at the center of the rotating feed shaft allows for the exit of these gases, which preferably go to a heat exchanger to recover any condensable fractions.

Abstract: An improved apparatus for filtration has a fluid mixture feed comprising light and heavy fractions fed into the workspace between counter-rotating disk impellers within a tank, thereby forming vortices in the workspace. A static radial exhaust array is located axially in the workspace, comprising exhaust channels, each of which has a peripheral end facing the workspace and an inner end communicating with an axial exhaust drain. An axial pump produces low pressure in the axial exhaust drain, thereby drawing in and anchoring the vortices to the peripheral ends of the exhaust channels so that the exhaust channels can extract the contents of the vortex cores. Vanes can be incorporated into the workspace surface of each disk impeller so that the opposed vanes pass in close proximity, forming vortices along a plurality of radial lanes of intersection, with the peripheral openings of each of the exhaust channels aligned with at least one of the lanes of intersection in the workspace.

Abstract: A shear retort mill for slow ablative pyrolysis features friction heating between shearing surfaces on a rotating disk and a static or rotating cylindrical drum enclosing the disk. A feed enters the workspace between the rotating disk and the bottom of the drum through a hollow feed shaft coupled to the rotating disk. Preferably, an auger compacts and moves the feed downward, and a shredder reduces the feed's particle size. The feed is increasingly ground and pyrolyzed as it is forced between the drum and disk shearing surface. As the dense processed material extrudes at the edge of the workspace, the gases and liquid products are forced inward by the barrier of dense solids. A static exhaust pipe at the center of the rotating feed shaft allows for the exit of these gases, which preferably go to a heat exchanger to recover any condensable fractions.

Abstract: An apparatus for filtration has a feed of sludge, containing liquid, solids and gases fed into a tank, the tank containing at least one spinning separation filter comprising a filter cone set having a filter screen, and a barrier cone, arranged roughly in parallel, and defining a conical workspace between them, the conical workspace having a peripheral opening to the tank and a central opening communicating with the interiors of one or more hollow shafts supporting the barrier cone and the filter cone, the upper shaft supporting the barrier cone having an upper axial channel for the exit of gases, the lower shaft supporting the center of the filter cone having a lower axial channel for the exit of liquid or oil, motor means for producing rotation in said at least one spinning separation filter, and a filtrate liquid reservoir located underneath the filter cone for capturing the filtrate passing through the filter screen.

Abstract: An improved apparatus for filtration has a fluid mixture feed comprising light and heavy fractions fed into the workspace between counter-rotating disk impellers within a tank, thereby forming vortices in the workspace. A static radial exhaust array is located axially in the workspace, comprising exhaust channels, each of which has a peripheral end facing the workspace and an inner end communicating with an axial exhaust drain. An axial pump produces low pressure in the axial exhaust drain, thereby drawing in and anchoring the vortices to the peripheral ends of the exhaust channels so that the exhaust channels can extract the contents of the vortex cores. Vanes can be incorporated into the workspace surface of each disk impeller so that the opposed vanes pass in close proximity, forming vortices along a plurality of radial lanes of intersection, with the peripheral openings of each of the exhaust channels aligned with at least one of the lanes of intersection in the workspace.

Abstract: An improvement is described for the processing of biological material in a continuous stream by the application of radiant energy taken from the wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet, and its absorption by a feedstock in a workspace of featuring controlled turbulence created by one or more counter-rotating disk impellers. The absorbed energy and the controlled turbulence patterns create a continuous process of productive change in a feed into the reactor, with separated light and heavy product output streams flowing both inward and outward from the axis in radial counterflow. The basic mechanism of processing can be applied to a wide range of feedstocks, from the promotion of the growth of algae to make biofuel or other forms of aquaculture, to a use in the controlled combustion of organic material to make biochar.

Abstract: An apparatus for filtration has a feed of sludge, containing liquid, solids and gases fed into a tank, the tank containing at least one spinning separation filter comprising a filter cone set having a filter screen, and a barrier cone, arranged roughly in parallel, and defining a conical workspace between them, the conical workspace having a peripheral opening to the tank and a central opening communicating with the interiors of one or more hollow shafts supporting the barrier cone and the filter cone, the upper shaft supporting the barrier cone having an upper axial channel for the exit of gases, the lower shaft supporting the center of the filter cone having a lower axial channel for the exit of liquid or oil, motor means for producing rotation in said at least one spinning separation filter, and a filtrate liquid reservoir located underneath the filter cone for capturing the filtrate passing through the filter screen.

Abstract: Coaxial disk armatures, counter-rotating through an axial magnetic field, act as electrolysis electrodes and high shear centrifugal impellers for an axial feed. The feed can be carbon dioxide, water, methane, or other substances requiring electrolysis. Carbon dioxide and water can be processed into syngas and ozone continuously, enabling carbon and oxygen recycling at power plants. Within the space between the counter-rotating disk electrodes, a shear layer comprising a fractal tree network of radial vortices provides sink flow conduits for light fractions, such as syngas, radially inward while the heavy fractions, such as ozone and elemental carbon flow radially outward in boundary layers against the disks and beyond the disk periphery, where they are recovered as valuable products, such as carbon nanotubes.

Abstract: Mechanical visbreaking and pyrolysis between counter-rotating coaxial centrifugal impellers in a continuous radial counterflow process minimizes wastewater discharges. In one example, a cataclastic shear retort comminutes, shear thins, and shear heats an axial feed, such as tar sand, oil shale, coal tailings, distillation bottoms, or lignite. Pyrolyzing the feedstock in this shear retort yields a product stream of gases, naphthas, and oils which first mixes with the feedstock and then is axially extracted, while spent solids are simultaneously extruded from the periphery as coked devolatilized residue, such as char sand for upgrading soil to terra preta. Recirculation of shear-heated solids in long residence time within the shear retort brings heat from the spent solids at the periphery to the feedstock without an external heated sand loop. CO2 emissions from combustion to heat water for oil extraction are eliminated.

Abstract: A scrubbing muffler for internal combustion engines comprises coaxial counter-rotating disk pairs stacked in a cascade. Acoustic pulses are attenuated by doing work and dissipated by the circuitous path through the dynamic cascade. A motor and/or Venturi effect from slipstream over a vehicle assists exhaust and reduces backpressure for greater fuel economy. Exhaust gas fed at the axis is sheared between the disks of the first stage of the cascade as it passes radially outward into a shrouding tank disposed about the cascade. Vortex rebound at the tank wall advects flow radially inward back through the workspace between the first stage disks to axial extraction as feed for the second stage of the cascade. N2 and H2O, along with CO and NO, can pass radially inward to successive stages. Soot and CO2 stay in the tank. NO and CO are reduced at a Faraday disk cathode.

Abstract: Coaxial disk armatures, counter-rotating through an axial magnetic field, act as electrolysis electrodes and high shear centrifugal impellers for an axial feed. The feed can be carbon dioxide, water, methane, or other substances requiring electrolysis. Carbon dioxide and water can be processed into syngas and ozone continuously, enabling carbon and oxygen recycling at power plants. Within the space between the counter-rotating disk electrodes, a shear layer comprising a fractal tree network of radial vortices provides sink flow conduits for light fractions, such as syngas, radially inward while the heavy fractions, such as ozone and elemental carbon flow radially outward in boundary layers against the disks and beyond the disk periphery, where they are recovered as valuable products, such as carbon nanotubes.

Abstract: An improvement is described for the processing of biological material in a continuous stream by the application of radiant energy taken from the wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet, and its absorption by a feedstock in a workspace of featuring controlled turbulence created by one or more counter-rotating disk impellers. The absorbed energy and the controlled turbulence patterns create a continuous process of productive change in a feed into the reactor, with separated light and heavy product output streams flowing both inward and outward from the axis in radial counterflow. The basic mechanism of processing can be applied to a wide range of feedstocks, from the promotion of the growth of algae to make biofuel or other forms of aquaculture, to a use in the controlled combustion of organic material to make biochar.

Abstract: Axially fed fluid is sheared during long residence time in a radial workspace between counter-rotating coaxial disk-shaped centrifugal impellers. Gases evolve in the fractal turbulence of a shear layer, which is forced between laminar boundary layers, and an axial suction pump axially extracts evolved noncondensables and volatiles through cores of radial vortices in the shear layer. Cavitation due to shear between the impellers kills pathogens by shock waves, microjets, OH radicals, and nearby UV light pulses. Oppositely charged electrodes bounding the workspace cause electroporesis and electrohydraulic cavitation. The electrodes are counter-rotating ridged armatures of disk dynamos, forming a dynamic capacitor having audio frequency pulsed electric fields. Electrode erosion by arcing is prevented by shear between the electrodes.

Abstract: A hermetic Rankine cycle in a sealed casing powers an internal centrifugal condensate pump with an internal vapor turbine during forced convective heat transfer between a heat source and a heat sink. No work is imported into the cycle during operation. A centrifugal pumping disk shears the working fluid against a heating surface, sweeping evolving vapor into radial vortices which provide sink flow conduits to a vapor space at the center of the cylindrical turbine. Convective mass flow through the vapor space to the condensing end of the casing spins the turbine and the centrifugal pumping disk which is connected to it. Vapor is continuously swept from the heating surface, so bubbles do not form and superheat while blocking heat flux into liquid working fluid. Vapor is sucked through the radial vortices into the central vapor space and into the condensing end of the casing along the low pressure gradients in vortex cores established by cooling power.

Abstract: Axially fed fluid is sheared during long residence time in a radial workspace between counter-rotating coaxial disk-shaped centrifugal impellers. Gases evolve in the fractal turbulence of a shear layer, which is forced between laminar boundary layers, and an axial suction pump axially extracts evolved noncondensables and volatiles through cores of radial vortices in the shear layer. Cavitation due to shear between the impellers kills pathogens by shock waves, microjets, OH radicals, and nearby UV light pulses. Oppositely charged electrodes bounding the workspace cause electroporesis and electrohydraulic cavitation. The electrodes are counter-rotating ridged armatures of disk dynamos, forming a dynamic capacitor having audio frequency pulsed electric fields. Electrode erosion by arcing is prevented by shear between the electrodes.

Abstract: An image delivery system responds to limits of bandwidth by changing the resolution of the delivered image according to the frame rate required. For a motion picture image, the resolution is reduced in order to maintain the frame rate, and if the image is paused, a maximum image resolution is loaded instead during the time the image is not being updated. For immersive imaging systems, there is a similar adjustment of resolution according to frame rate and the bandwidth requirements, and the user is free to look around, either inside a motion picture at reduced resolution or a paused image at a higher resolution. This higher resolution is typically seen in a movable region of interest window extracted from the larger immersive image.

Abstract: Axially fed fluid is sheared during long residence time in a radial workspace between counter-rotating coaxial disk-shaped centrifugal impellers. Gases evolve in the fractal turbulence of a shear layer, which is forced between laminar boundary layers, and an axial suction pump axially extracts evolved noncondensables and volatiles through cores of radial vortices in the shear layer. Cavitation due to shear between the impellers kills pathogens by shock waves, microjets, OH radicals, and nearby UV light pulses. Oppositely charged electrodes bounding the workspace cause electroporesis and electrohydraulic cavitation. The electrodes are counter-rotating ridged armatures of disk dynamos, forming a dynamic capacitor having audio frequency pulsed electric fields. Electrode erosion by arcing is prevented by shear between the electrodes.

Abstract: An improvement is described for the processing of biological material in a continuous stream by the application of radiant energy taken from the wavelengths from infrared to ultraviolet, and its absorption by a feedstock in a workspace of featuring controlled turbulence created by one or more counter-rotating disk impellers. The absorbed energy and the controlled turbulence patterns create a continuous process of productive change in a feed into the reactor, with separated light and heavy product output streams flowing both inward and outward from the axis in radial counterflow. The basic mechanism of processing can be applied to a wide range of feedstocks, from the promotion of the growth of algae to make biofuel or other forms of aquaculture, to a use in the controlled combustion of organic material to make biochar.