Abstract: The inventions are related to industrial processing of combustible carbon- and hydrocarbon products. A method of processing combustible carbon- and hydrocarbon products is implemented using a reactor equipped with temperature sensors. The reactors comprise the phases of heating the charge (13), pyrolysis of combustible components and coking (12), combustion (11), and formation of a solid residue (4). At the phases of heating the charge (13) and coking and pyrolysis (12), an aerosol (i.e. dust particles and condensed liquid droplets carried away from the combustion zone (11) sorption zone (21) is formed by flushing the upper part of the charge by liquid hydrocarbonaceous products through the dispenser (22) and/or by adding to the batch the solid hydrocarbonaceous products having a softening point above 60° C. and the end boiling point above 300° C.

Abstract: Methods, devices and systems for continuously converting biomass are described herein. A device has a feed section for holding a moving bed of biomass, namely wood, having a drying section, a flame zone for degassing, and a, smolder zone for carbonizing the biomass into a solid converted product, namely charcoal. The device includes a tank for collecting the solid converted product arranged below a grate and coupled with the feed section in a gas-tight manner. The system comprising the device, a biogas plant and/or a combined heat and power plant conveys the liquid converted product, namely pyroligneous acid or acetic acid, to the biogas plant and/or the solid converted product, namely charcoal, to the combined heat and power plant.

Abstract: Disclosed is a vertical pyrolysis equipment for coal material, which comprises an enclosed kiln body with an inlet and an outlet, a flame-gas heating pipelines provided inside the kiln body, coal material propulsion and pyrolysis passage formed between the flame-gas heating pipelines and inner wall of the kiln body, coal pyrolysis gas collecting tube communicated with the coal material propulsion and pyrolysis passage provided on the kiln. The heat generated by flame-gas heating pipelines is conducted and radiated to coal powder in the coal material propulsion and pyrolysis passage. The coal powder sufficiently absorbs the heat and is pyrolyzed into fuel gas, tar gas and coal with high heat value inside the coal material propulsion and pyrolysis passage. The pyrolyzed fuel gas and tar gas are transferred to the gas dedusting-liquifying mechanism outside the kiln through the connecting coal pyrolysis gas collecting tube for collecting, dedusting, separating and high-pressure liquefying.

Abstract: The invention provides an apparatus and method for thermolysis of waste plastic in which reaction residue and carbonization products are continuously removed. The apparatus includes a feeding system, an extruder, a reactor for thermolysis, a dual agitator housed within the reactor, a trigger system in operative connection with the reactor, a flux heater, and a collecting system in operative connection with the reactor. The reactor for thermolysis has a height at least 1.5 times bigger than a diameter. The trigger system includes a circulation pump and the collecting system has a three-way valve in an external circulation loop. The apparatus is arranged such that the extruder follows the feeding system, the reactor follows the extruder, the trigger system is at a bottom of the reactor, and the flux heater and collecting system follow the reactor.

Abstract: Apparatus for the manufacture of charcoal, comprising a unit having walls defining a primary combustion chamber, and a material inlet for allowing a feed of wood chips though said material inlet into said apparatus. A trough is located at a lower height than said material inlet such that material passing through said material inlet is able to fall into the trough. An air inlet is located below the material inlet such that, when wood chips are located within the trough piled up to said material inlet, air passing from said air inlet passes through said wood-chips and into the primary combustion chamber.

Abstract: A coke drum bottom de-heading system having an internal shroud enclosure and a shroud end cap opened by a flange to a coke bottom de-heading valve capable of accepting the end of a gate valve upon actuation. Acting in coordination with the shroud enclosure to prevent the escape of steam is a gate seal assembly having a gate seal slidably engaged against the sliding gate to prevent the passage of steam thereby.

Abstract: A coke drum bottom de-heading system having an internal shroud enclosure and a shroud end cap opened by a flange to a coke bottom de-heading valve capable of accepting the end of a gate valve upon actuation. Acting in coordination with the shroud enclosure to prevent the escape of steam is a gate seal assembly having a gate seal slidably engaged against the sliding gate to prevent the passage of steam thereby.

Abstract: A coke drum bottom de-heading system having an internal shroud enclosure and a shroud end cap opened by a flange to a coke bottom de-heading valve capable of accepting the end of a gate valve upon actuation. Acting in coordination with the shroud enclosure to prevent the escape of steam is a gate seal assembly having a gate seal slidably engaged against the sliding gate to prevent the passage of steam thereby.

Abstract: An apparatus for accumulating coke includes a coke drum having an upper head, a lower section, and a generally cylindrical wall having a height parallel to its longitudinal axis and extending between and joined to the upper head and the lower section. The wall includes an upper ring and a lower ring, each of which has a height parallel to the longitudinal axis of the wall which is in a range of zero percent to 25 percent of the height of the wall. The wall also includes an intermediate ring which extends between and is joined to the upper ring, if present, and the lower ring, if present. The intermediate ring has a length which is equal to a cumulative length of the upper ring and the lower ring subtracted from the length of the wall. The intermediate ring is free of joints which extend in a circumferential direction of the wall.

Abstract: The cycle time for a delayed coker unit is reduced by externally heating the coke drum near the junction of the drum shell and the supporting skirt thereof prior to beginning the hot coker feed fill step. This reduces the thermal stresses at the area around the welds of the drum skirt.

Abstract: Apparatus for purifying, devolatilizing and/or sheeting a thermoplastic material in which a high density, flowable heat exchange material, having a density substantially above the density of the thermoplastic material and which is essentially immiscible therewith, is continuously circulated through a contact zone in a manner to maintain an extended surface area body of the high density heat exchange material in the contact zone, the thermoplastic material is introduced into and withdrawn from the contact zone in a manner to form a continuously flowing layer of the thermoplastic material across the surface of the body of high density heat exchange material. Thermoplastic material may be introduced into the contact vessel as a powder, melted in an intermediate section of the contact vessel, resolidified at the opposite end of the contact vessel and withdrawn as a sheet of thermoplastic material.

Abstract: A retort apparatus for recovering oil from crushed oil shale moved through an elongated housing, includes a plurality of heat exchangers located in the housing for transferring heat to or from the shale. The heat exchangers are spaced to define in sequence a drying zone, a preheating zone, a cracking and distillation zone, and a waste heat recovery zone. An auxiliary heating assembly connected to the heat exchangers delivers sufficient heat to raise the temperature of the shale in the cracking and distillation zone to the critical temperature for separating hydrocarbons in vapor form therefrom. The tubes of the heat exchangers are elongated ovals in cross-section and are offset from each other in alternate rows to increase the area of heat exchange and to reduce the temperature drop between the entering heated air and exiting heated air flowing through each heat exchange tube.

Abstract: Oil shale is well mixed and efficiently, effectively, and economically retorted in a special gravity flow retorting process and system which utilizes novel arrangements of internal baffles in a static mixer.

Abstract: Briquettes made from bituminous or sub-bituminous coal or peat are produced by grinding the coal, mixing it with a binder and compacting the mixture. They are then carbonized in a continuous process in a shaft oven. The coal may be predried and the finished briquettes may be preheated, with a subsequent drying and hardening. The carbonization is effected in two stages in an indirectly heated shaft oven, with the evolved gas being taken off about at the mid-height of the oven shaft, processed, and used for heating in the second, high-temperature stage. The flue gases from this high-temperature stage are used for heating in the first stage and for preheating. The second or high-temperature stage is followed by a cooling stage where the gases evolved in the second stage, and mainly comprising hydrogen are used and circulated. The evolved gas in excess is continuously removed from the cooling circuit.

Abstract: Retorted shale particles are recovered from a retort and delivered to a gas lift for transport to a fluidized combustor by passage, serially, through a sealing vessel, a crusher preferably operating at retort pressure, and a surge vessel. In the sealing vessel, a sealing gas is introduced, and after commingling with the shale, the gas passes countercurrently to the shale and enters the retort, thus sealing the retort gases in the retort while separating the retorted shale from the retort gases. Retorted shale from the sealing vessel is transported to a crusher, wherein the shale is reduced in size to that suitable for combustion under fluidized conditions. To prevent the crushed shale from packing, the shale is passed to a surge vessel, wherein the crushed shale is held as a fluidized bed, from which the crushed shale is continuously withdrawn at a regulated rate and introduced into the gas lift leading to the fluidized combustor.

Abstract: An improved retort apparatus for recovering oil from crushed oil shale moved by gravity through a passageway of an elongated housing includes a control assembly connected adjacent the outlet end of the housing to control the rate of movement of the crushed oil shale through the passageway. A plurality of heat exchangers are located in the housing for transferring heat in sequence to or from the crushed oil shale. The heat exchangers are spaced to define a drying zone, a preheating zone, a hydrocarbon recovery zone, and a waste heat recovery zone. A pump recirculating circuit is provided for passing waste heat recovered from the waste heat recovery zone to the preheating zone. An auxiliary heating assembly connected to the heat exchangers in the hydrocarbon recovery zone delivers sufficient heat to raise the temperature of the crushed oil shale moving through the hydrocarbon recovery zone to the critical temperature for separating hydrocarbons in vapor form therefrom.

Abstract: Particulate carbon is reactivated by heating it for an effective reactivation time at a reactivation temperature in a stationary vertical annular heating zone of an unlined metal kiln.

Abstract: A continuously operable retort-type processing system for the recovery of petroleum-like products from comminuted oil-bearing shale and other oil-yielding particulate solid materials. The retort portion of the system includes an insulated retort outer shell for a wall jacket-type heat exchanger. Disposed within the retort, all driven from a common axially disposed motor-driven shaft, are a plurality of stirring fingers, wall scrapers and discharge shovels, the latter for use in discharge of spent solid material from the retort. The system envisions burning gases from the process to provide a fluid heat exchange medium as a source of the heat required for the process. The system further includes means for the admixture of steam and acetic acid with the starting particulate materials prior to its introduction into the retort.

Abstract: A coke oven, comprises a housing having an interior vertically elongated coke oven chamber with a plurality of vertically extending binding walls subdividing the oven chamber into a plurality of heating flues. A nozzle in each of the binder walls between the heating flues discharges a rich gas into each flue. In addition, the binder walls contain respective first and second vertical air ducts arranged in alternate binder walls between the flues with alternate ones of the air ducts having discharges at one or more levels above the others of each binder duct wall and connecting into the flues on each side of the associated binding wall. An air duct supply is connected separately to the alternate ones in each of the other air supply ducts.

Abstract: Crushed oil shale is segregated into a major portion of relatively large particles and a minor portion of "fines," such as will pass through 1/8-inch screen openings. The large particles are subjected to retorting in an upflowing bed in countercurrent contact with a downflowing hot eduction gas, while the fines are fed onto and controllably transported across the hot planar surface of a free-standing truncated cone of spent shale at the top of the retort.

Abstract: A conical reaction region in a pyrolysis device has an adjustable height, adjustable speed agitator in the vicinity of the grate and a second agitator stirring the incoming material. A feed auger stops short of the reaction chamber to produce a sealing region in which the incoming feed material effectively produces a gas tight seal preventing the exit of reaction products. A gas outlet flow rate sensor controls the air inflow rate and/or lower agitator speed. Temperature and other sensors may be used to further optimize the process.

Abstract: Crushed oil shale is segregated into a major portion of relatively large particles and a minor portion of "fines" which will pass through screen openings up to about 1/4 inch in size. The large particles are subjected to retorting as an upflowing moving bed in countercurrent contact with downflowing hot eduction gas, while the fines are retorted by controlled distribution over the hot upper surface of the bed of retorted large particles.

Abstract: A furnace for thermal processing of lump solid fuel, comprising a body accommodating a semicoking zone, zones for gasifying semicoke and for cooling waste solid material and chambers adapted for feeding gas into said zones and discharging a vapor-gas mixture therefrom, said zones and chambers being arranged in succession along the height of the furnace body. The furnace is furnished with an unloading device for discharging solid waste material, said device being located in the bottom part of the furnace body and constituting a hopper with a water seal having a cylindrical bottom passing into a sloping trough. Mounted above the cylindrical portion of the bottom is a sector rocking-type pusher and above the sloping trough - a mechanical shovel associated with the sector pusher in such a manner that a working stroke of the sector pusher corresponds to an idle stroke of the mechanical shovel.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for disposal of rubber wastes is provided wherein rubber wastes such as scrap tires are dry-distilled in a vertical dry distillation retort of an internal heating type having a rotary discharge chute with a water seal, valuable substances contained in the rubber wastes, such as carbon black and oil, are effectively recovered and dry-distilled gas is used as a heat source for the dry distillation of the rubber wastes.

Abstract: Fine-grain fuel is carbonized at a low temperature by feeding the fuel from a hopper downwardly into the gap formed between two vertically-arranged, plate-type conveyors. The plates of each conveyor move downwardly while their back face surfaces bear against the wall of a heating chamber. The position of the heating chambers is controlled to maintain a narrow gap, e.g., 10-30 millimeters between the plates of the conveyors. The conveyors and heating chambers are located within a container wherein a pressure of up to 100 bars is maintained and a clear gas is passed countercurrently to the downward advancement of the fuel in the gap between the conveyors. Breaker rollers below the conveyors subdivide the carbonized fuel issuing from the gap for passage into a gasification chamber. Part of the gas yield is used as fuel for the heating chambers.

Abstract: Heat from spent shale combustion is removed from shale ash and combustion gases by direct contact thereof with raw shale particles wherein the fine raw shale particles not easily separable from the shale ash are removed prior to contact of the raw shale with the shale ash and combustion gases.