Heated Airlock Feeder Unit

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

• A drive, coupling, gearbox, augers, elongated tubular barrel housing, two clamshell burner boxes, expansion cart, and support frame, where;
• The drive system is a standard off-the-shelf helical gear drive with a high torque ratio, where;
• The gear drive is selected with the vertical footprint to reduce the system's overall length, where;
• The drive is connected to a standard sheer coupling, where;
• The coupling is designed to separate under overloading conditions to protect the gearbox, where;
• The coupling consists of two augers that are custom constructed, one being left-hand flights, the other being right hand flights where one of the augers is longer than the other to protrude through the gearbox and connect to the drive coupling, the augers being constructed from solid material with connection slips for machining purposes and where the augers are connected to a gearbox, where;
• The gearbox in which the augers are connected consist of gear drives that are keyed into the shaft and sealed on both sides of the gearbox, the gearbox consists of simple lip seals, bearings and spur gears, where the length of the gearbox is extended due to the reload of the screw flights so as machines at the end can socket fit inside the other and be welded solid, the screws being machined on the outside after welding, and placed within a housing, where;
• The elongated tubular barrel housing is pre-welded before machining the interior to require a straight design so connecting flanges at both ends and the inlet match the gearbox and the reactor bolt pattern and one side is machine tapered to reduce the outlet area to increase back pressure inside the heated airlock theater where this feeding is welded to a reactor matching flange, where;
• The augers are located within an elongated tubular barrel that allows for plastic material input and output at either end of the elongated tubular barrel, where;
• The assembly of the auger and elongated tubular barrel is surrounded by two split assembly clamshell heater boxes, one covering one end of the auger and the other covering the other end of the auger, that produce the heat that allow the airlock to seal and start vaporization of the plastic inside the feeder, these clamshell heater boxes coming into contact with the airlock feeder allowing for greater expansion of the housing from the clamshell heater boxes due to the fact that they are insulated on the inside so the metal does not expand on the outside, where;
• The entire apparatus described above is bolted to a cart allowing the apparatus to expand and contract, where;
• The cart that the apparatus is bolted to rests on a frame.