Device for upgrading solid organic materials

Abstract

A device for upgrading a solid organic material into a resulting product comprises a reactor with an organic material inlet, and a flue gas inlet adapted to introduce flue gas into the reactor, an input driver adapted to continuously transfer the solid organic material to the organic material inlet, an output driver adapted to continuously transfer the solid organic material out of the reactor, a gas flow element operatively connected to the flue gas inlet permitting flue gas to mix with the solid organic material but restricting flow of the solid organic material away from the flue gas inlet, and a rapid cooling device operatively connected to the output driver and adapted to apply a heat transfer liquid directly onto the solid organic material and thereby form the resulting product.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims priority benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent application 61 / 705,190, filed on Sep. 25, 2012, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to a device for upgrading of solid organic materials, and more particularly to a device for upgrading of solid organic materials suitable for high volume operations.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Solid organic materials include peat, biomass, garbage, and coal, especially low rank coals. Such solid organic materials have been considered as fuel and a source of energy. However, many of these solid organic materials contain relatively large amounts of water—often on the order of 30-60% by weight or more. Because of this high water content, and related low energy density, such solid organic materials have been commercially unattractive for use in industry, especially when the industry that ne...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is a device that can upgrade solid organic materials like coal into higher quality products. It includes a reactor with an organic material inlet and a flue gas inlet, an input driver to continuously transfer the organic material, an output driver to continuously transfer the organic material, a gas flow element to mix flue gas with the organic material and prevent it from flowing away, and a rapid cooling device to apply a heat transfer liquid to the organic material and form the resulting product. The device is low cost and suitable for high volume continuous operations.

Problems solved by technology

Because of this high water content, and related low energy density, such solid organic materials have been commercially unattractive for use in industry, especially when the industry that needs the fuel, such as power plants, are located remote from the source of the fuel.

However, known technologies for drying such organic materials are either expensive and / or introduce additional problems which have hitherto made the technologies uneconomical.

Further, such dried low rank coals tend to produce undesirably large amounts of dust.

In addition to these problems, low rank coals typically have a high water content, making it generally uneconomical to mine low rank coal and then ship it to a central facility for upgrading.

However, to date, none of the known technologies has seen any significant commercial acceptance.

Many of the known upgrading technologies have used additional additives, heating oils, inert gases, diesel fuel, relatively expensive specialized equipment, etc.

Any and all of these additional materials must be shipped to the coal mine, greatly increasing the costs of operation.

In addition to cost issues, many of the known technologies have other issues.

For example, fluidized bed systems have difficulty with coal fines due to separation of lighter particles from heavier particles (elutriation) during operation.

This means that even though fluidized bed systems have often been suggested for use in coal upgrading devices, known fluidized bed systems are not practical for high volume operations.

These processes are typically batch operations which inherently run relatively slowly, which is again not desirable for high volume coal mining operations.

However, the problems associated with dust have not been eliminated, and typically an additional resin or binder has to be added to the coal to help form the briquettes, and / or the coal used is limited to those types of coals with relatively high amounts of naturally occurring resin.

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