Heated airlock feeder unit

An apparatus that is part of a reusable fuel processing unit having an assembly being used to introduce plastic into a main reactor and act as an airlock at the same time allowing for continuous feeding of plastic into the main reactor, comprising:

• a drive system;
• a coupling;
• a gear box;
• augers;
• an elongated tubular barrel housing;
• and
• split assembly clamshell heater boxes,
• wherein, the drive system comprises a gear drive,
• wherein, the gear drive is arranged with a vertical footprint to reduce the overall length of the main reactor,
• wherein the gear drive is connected to the coupling,
• wherein, the coupling is designed to separate under overloading conditions to protect the gear box,
• wherein, the coupling consists of two augers, one having left-hand flights, the other having right-hand flights, the two augers comprising drive shafts, where one of the drive shafts of the two augers is longer than the other and is configured to extend into the gear box and connect to a drive coupling to provide rotation,
• wherein, the gear box is extended to accommodate a cantilever load of the two augers,
• wherein, one side of the elongated tubular barrel housing is tapered to reduce an outlet area to increase back pressure inside a heated airlock feeder,
• wherein, the two augers are located within the elongated tubular barrel housing,
• wherein, the assembly of the two augers and the elongated tubular barrel housing is surrounded by two split assembly clamshell heater boxes, one covering one end of the two augers and the other covering the other end of the two augers, that produce heat that allows the airlock to seal and start vaporization of plastic inside the heated airlock feeder, the split assembly clamshell heater boxes coming into contact with the heated airlock feeder allowing for greater expansion of a housing from the split assembly clamshell heater boxes due to that they are insulated on the inside so metal does not expand on the outside,
• wherein, the two augers are elongated, axially rotatable screws each having an elongated shaft with outwardly extending helical flighting along one-half of the length of each elongated shaft starting at the gear box and ending in a smooth surface where the smooth surface has the same diameter as the augers with the outwardly extending helical flighting, wherein, the flightings of the two augers overlap to provide rotation of the outwardly extending helical flighting in opposite directions.