Abstract: Process and apparatus are disclosed for recovering liquid and gaseous fuel from solid hydrocarbon-containing mineral material such as bitumen-containing mineral materials exemplified by tar sands or oil-bearing diatomites, without expensive pretreatment to separate the hydrocarbon containing material from material containing no hydrocarbon. The hydrocarbon-containing material is agglomerated into discrete pieces that are treated on a traveling grate such as a circular traveling grate and subjected to sequential treatments in which hot gases are passed upwardly or downwardly through a relatively deep permeable bed of the pieces on the grate, in several treating zones separated by transverse gas seals and sealed at the side edges by suitable gas seals. All, or essentially all, of the heat required is obtained in a coke burn-off zone from combustion of coke that remains in the material on the grate after the volatile hydrocarbons have been removed by distillation in an earlier distillation zone.

Abstract: Process and apparatus are disclosed for recovering liquid and gaseous fuel from solid hydrocarbon-containing mineral material such as bitumen-containing mineral materials exemplified by tar sands or oil-bearing diatomites, without expensive pretreatment to separate the hydrocarbon containing material from material containing no hydrocarbon. The hydrocarbon-containing material is agglomerated into discrete pieces that are treated on a traveling grate such as a circular traveling grate and subjected to sequential treatments in which hot gases are passed upwardly or downwardly through a relatively deep permeable bed of the pieces on the grate, in several treating zones separated by transverse gas seals and sealed at the side edges by suitable gas seals. All, or essentially all, of the heat required is obtained in a coke burn-off zone from combustion of coke that remains in the material on the grate after the volatile hydrocarbons have been removed by distillation in an earlier distillation zone.

Abstract: A continuous process is disclosed for removing sulfur dioxide from stack gases or other gaseous effluents without prior gas cleaning or dust removal and for converting the sulfur values to industrially useable elemental sulfur. The uncleaned gaseous effluent is scrubbed using a buffered absorbent to absorb the SO.sub.2 and remove particulate material, and the undissolved particulate material is removed from the scrubbing liquor as by filtration. The scrubbing liquor is then contacted with sulfide ion to form elemental sulfur while regenerating the absorbent in the liquor. Most of the liquor is separated from the precipitated sulfur and solid impurities, and the remaining material is heated to permit gravity separation of molten sulfur, scrubbing liquor and impurities. The separated scrubbing liquor is recycled for the scrubbing steps.The process is particularly advantageous when employing a sulfide ion source, such as sodium bisulfide or the like, to precipitate elemental sulfur.