Resource recovery from wood wastes
AssigneeThe Crucible Group IP Pty Ltd
InventorsJoseph George Herbertson, Lazar Strezov, Kannappar Mukunthan
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Abstract
A method and an apparatus for processing wood wastes and producing valuable products that are safe and have economic value is disclosed. The apparatus includes a continuous converter (3) for a feed material that includes wood wastes containing contaminants. The continuous converter includes a reaction chamber (5) for producing a solid carbon-containing product, a gas product, and optionally a liquid oil product and a separate water-based condensate product in the chamber, via pyrolysis or other reaction mechanisms.
Claims12
An apparatus for processing wood wastes and producing valuable products that are safe and have economic value, the apparatus including a continuous converter for a feed material that includes wood wastes containing contaminants, with the continuous converter including a reaction chamber for producing a solid carbon-containing product, a gas product, and optionally a liquid oil product and a separate water-based condensate product in the chamber, via pyrolysis or other reaction mechanisms, an inlet for supplying the feed material to the reaction chamber, an assembly for moving the feed material through the reaction chamber from the upstream end towards the downstream end of the chamber counter-current to the flow of gas generated in the chamber as a consequence of drying or other reactions in the chamber, and separate outlets for the solid carbon-containing product, the gas product, and optionally the liquid water product from the reaction chamber, with the apparatus being adapted to decompose organic material contaminants in the wood wastes and to incorporate the decomposed forms into useful products, and with the apparatus being adapted to deport heavy metal contaminants to the solid carbon-containing product.
A method for processing wood wastes and producing valuable products that are safe and have economic value in the apparatus described in the preceding paragraph, with the method including the steps of:
- (a) supplying a solid feed material that includes wood wastes containing contaminants to the inlet of the reaction chamber of the apparatus;
- (b) moving the feed material through the reaction chamber from the inlet to the downstream end of the chamber and exposing the feed material to a time-temperature profile within the chamber that dries and pyrolyses or otherwise processes the feed material and releases water vapour and a volatile products gas phase from the feed material as the feed material moves through the chamber;
- (c) moving the water vapour phase and the volatile products gas phase produced by heating the feed material in step (b) through the reaction chamber in a direction counter to that of the feed material so that at least a part of the water vapour phase and the condensable components of the volatile products gas phase condense in cooler upstream sections of the reaction chamber and form liquid water and liquid oil, at least the liquid oil being carried forward in the reaction chamber by the feed material to the higher temperature regions of the reaction chamber and being progressively volatilised and cracked to a non-condensable gas;
- and
- (d) discharging (i) a gas product and (ii) a dried and pyrolysed solid carbon-containing product from the separate outlets of the chamber, and
- with the time-temperature profile within the chamber ensuring that (i) organic material contaminants in the wood wastes are decomposed and the decomposed forms are incorporated into useful products and (ii) heavy metal contaminants in the wood wastes are deported to the solid carbon-containing product.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.