Abstract: Mechanical visbreaking and pyrolysis between counter-rotating coaxial centrifugal impellers in a continuous radial counterflow process minimizes wastewater discharges. In an embodiment, 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: 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: 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: Power from wind, solar, and other intermittent energy sources cracks carbon dioxide, NOx, SOx, and other emissions from fossil fuel power plants, which provide baseload power to the grid. By this hybrid power system, intermittent sources can be integrated in power generation without compromising the reliability of the grid and without long power line connections. Carbon dioxide becomes, in effect, a storage medium for energy produced by intermittent sources. The CO2 can be pipelined to sites where wind, solar, tidal or and other intermittent energy sources are available, or power lines can be run from such intermittent sources to convenient sites for cracking.

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: Continuous nanotube synthesis by vortex deposition occurs in an axially-fed shear reactor comprising coaxial counter-rotating disk impeller/electrodes charged as anodes. Nanotube evolving ends, charged as cathodes, point toward the anode axis of rotation and protrude into the space between the anodes. Radial vortices in a shear layer of the space, between the boundary layers on the impeller/electrodes, spin cations to be deposited on evolving nanotube ends approximately at the vortex axis, so deposition is by swirling cathode fall. The evolved nanotubes are extracted mechanically, and they conduct electrons from charging means to charge the evolving ends as cathodes. The preferential synthesis of metallic carbon nanotubes is due to the greater resistance of non-metallic structures such as graphite or semiconductive structures. Ozone serves to oxidize non-metallic structures and to functionalize the loose ends of nanotube fragments.

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: 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: 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 noncondensibles 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. The device is also a continuous crystallizer.