Patents by Inventor Jeffrey V. Wetzel

Jeffrey V. Wetzel has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20110005393
    Abstract: The system and method for recycling and using the heat from compressed gas produced by a biogas treatment plant. The system includes a biogas cleaning stage and a plurality of compression and heat exchanger stages that allows the heat generated by compressed gases to be harvested. After the heat is harvested, it is delivered to a jacketed vessel containing media used to remove contaminants from the biogas. The media inside the jacketed vessel requires regeneration or stripping of harmful VOCs and other contaminants picked up from the biogas. The system also includes an inert gas generator that creates hot inert gas that is delivered to the jacketed vessel that heats the media located therein to remove contaminants. Because the jacket vessel and the media are simultaneously heated, the system's heat-up time is reduced The system also includes a heat exchanger that partially recovers the heat from the inert gas.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 10, 2010
    Publication date: January 13, 2011
    Inventors: Lowell Howard, Jeffrey V. Wetzel, Ronald Drake
  • Patent number: 7806964
    Abstract: The system and method for recycling the compress heat generated at a bio-gas treatment plant that includes the assembly of a heat exchanger at each stage of compression designed to utilizing all of the gas flow and to harvest the heat in gas delivered to the air exchangers. After the heat is harvested, it is then conveyed either as hot air, or as a hot liquid, to a jacketed vessel containing media that requires regeneration or stripping of harmful VOCs picked up during the purification of contaminated landfill or municipal digester gas. The harvesting and conveyance of the heat of compression of the gases to a jacket around the vessel interior (indirect contact) and simultaneously heating the vessel interior containing the spent media through hot gas from another source (direct contact), reduces the heat-up time. This also reduces the overall the cycle time between the contaminant pick-up step and contaminant stripping step in regenerable treatment systems.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 27, 2008
    Date of Patent: October 5, 2010
    Inventors: Lowell E. Howard, Jeffrey V. Wetzel
  • Publication number: 20090000482
    Abstract: The system and method for recycling the compress heat generated at a biogas treatment plant that includes the assembly of a heat exchanger at each stage of compression designed to utilizing all of the gas flow and to harvest the heat in gas delivered to the air exchangers. After the heat is harvested, it is then conveyed either as hot air, or as a hot liquid, to a jacketed vessel containing media that requires regeneration or stripping of harmful VOCs picked up during the purification of contaminated landfill or municipal digester gas. The harvesting and conveyance of the heat of compression of the gases to a jacket around the vessel interior (indirect contact) and simultaneously heating the vessel interior containing the spent media through hot gas from another source (direct contact), reduces the heat-up time. This also reduces the overall the cycle time between the contaminant pick-up step and contaminant stripping step in regenerable treatment systems.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 27, 2008
    Publication date: January 1, 2009
    Inventors: Lowell E. Howard, Jeffrey V. Wetzel
  • Patent number: 7410524
    Abstract: A process to purify biogases (i.e., landfill gas and municipal digester gas), to enable such biogases to be utilized to generate electricity and heat. Biogases from these sources generally include small amounts of organosilicons (which are particularly harmful to power generation equipment, and especially harmful to micro-turbines, reciprocating internal combustion engines, and large turbines), and halogenated chemical species (which can foul expensive emission catalysts). A fluidized media bed reactor is configured to concentrate offending organics, and is coupled with another reactor vessel configured to strip the offending organics off saturated media with a hot inert gas. The removed organics are further concentrated into an inert gas stream that is conveyed to a small flare for greater than 99% destruction. The energy required to strip the organics from the spent media, and to energize the flare, is generated by the combustion of a small quantity of the purified biogas.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 12, 2008
    Inventors: Lowell E. Howard, Paul M. Tower, Jeffrey V. Wetzel
  • Patent number: 7393381
    Abstract: A plurality of different layers of filter media are used to remove siloxanes from a gas stream. Based on an analysis of the specific gas stream to be filtered, a filter media having an average pore size enabling the preferential removal of a specific class of contaminants is selected for each different class of contaminants. The layers are arranged in sequential order such that contaminants having a higher molecular weight are preferentially removed by the first layers. Collectively, the layers define a segmented activity gradient that enables each class of contaminants present in the gas stream to be preferentially removed in a different layer, preventing removal competition between different classes of contaminants. Preferable adsorption media exhibit a relatively narrow range of pore sizes. Both inorganic adsorption media and carbon-based adsorption media exhibiting a relatively narrow range of pore sizes can be used.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2005
    Date of Patent: July 1, 2008
    Assignee: Applied Filter Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Paul M. Tower, Jeffrey V. Wetzel
  • Patent number: 7264648
    Abstract: A plurality of different layers of filter media are used to remove siloxanes from a gas stream. Based on an analysis of the specific gas stream to be filtered, a filter media having an average pore size enabling the preferential removal of a specific class of contaminants is selected for each different class of contaminants. The layers are arranged in sequential order such that contaminants having a higher molecular weight are preferentially removed by the first layers. Collectively, the layers define a segmented activity gradient that enables each class of contaminants present in the gas stream to be preferentially removed in a different layer, preventing removal competition between different classes of contaminants. A polymorphous graphite is used as the filter media, because that material is available in a range of well-controlled pore sizes, as opposed to conventional activated carbon filter media, which generally exhibits poorly-controlled pore sizes.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 18, 2004
    Date of Patent: September 4, 2007
    Assignee: Applied Filter Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey V. Wetzel, Paul M. Tower