Abstract: Coal is transported through a hot carbonizing furnace chamber successfully on two endless traveling chain grates, the first of which is higher than the second and the second being run at a slower speed than the first so as to form a thicker bed than the coal on the first grate. Air is fed through the coal on the first grate in sub-stoichiometric amounts at low velocity so as to drive off the volatiles while air and steam are fed to the coal in the second grate in amounts sufficient to burn the coal. Gaseous by-products are exhausted from the furnace chamber and ashes are discharged through a conventional take-off.

Abstract: A bed of high-sulfur coal is burned in transit through a furnace on a horizontal or inclined travelling grate. Low pressure air is fed upwardly through the bed in quantities sufficient to react with most of the carbon content of the coal, from which sulfureous gases arise. High pressure air is blasted upwardly through the remnants of the burning coal as they fall off the end of the grate run. Clinker content of the residue free-falls off the end of the grate run into a collector while burned or partly burned fines are elevated above the end of the grate run. High pressure air with entrained limestone blows the elevated particles back through the sulfureous atmosphere above the bed so as to react with the carbon content of the particles and grab the sulfur.

Abstract: Coal is processed first through a moving bed reactor and then through a fixed bed reactor. Hot carbonized coal char is fed from the first stage reactor to the second stage reactor via a lock hopper and gas is taken off from the reactors either in separate streams or in a common stream.

Abstract: Adjacent alternating rows of relatively coarse and fine coal are deposited onto a horizontal moving grate running through a coking furnace.

Abstract: Vertically elongate pockets are defined between fixed and horizontally movable vertical refractory walls. When the bottom of the pocket is closed, coal dropped into the pocket from above is compressed between the fixed and movable walls and heated to coking temperature by hot gases in vertical flues extending through the refractory walls. When coked, the moveable wall recedes and the coke therein drops into a shaft furnace below, where devolatilization is complete and the coke is quenched in an inert gas atmosphere, which is totally enclosed to prevent air pollution.

Abstract: Adjacent alternating rows of relatively coarse and fine coal are deposited onto a horizontal moving grate running through a coking furnace.

Abstract: Continuously flowing solid material, such as municipal waste, is pretreated in an air-starved hot moving grate carbonizer furnace to drive off low temperature volatiles, and then further devolatized in a shaft furnace wherein limited amounts of air are let into a downwardly moving stack of the precarbonized material at a plurality of locations spaced sufficiently apart as to preclude formation of hot spots, i.e., localized regions of intense reaction, such as would cause clinkers to be formed. Low Btu gas is exhausted from the pretreatment carbonizer and shaft furnace and sterile ash residue is discharged from the bottom of the shaft furnace.

Abstract: Solid municipal waste refuse is pre-treated by partial burning in a moving grate hot carbonizer furnace and then further burned on a reciprocating step-grate stoker in the same furnace chamber. Limited amounts of air are fed to the waste through the grates to avoid the formation of hot spots in the burning material, thereby preventing the formation of clinkers and restricting the burning of volatile matter in the refuse. Hot low-Btu gas exhausted from the furnace chamber is burned in a boiler.

Abstract: Raw coal is charred in pre- and post-treatment carbonizers, then pulverized, mixed with pitch, briquetted, re-circulated through the pre- and post-treatment carbonizers with succeeding green coal, cooled, and finally separated from the as yet un-briquetted char.