Extraction of organics from waste material
AssigneeAnaergia Inc.
InventorsSasha ROLLINGS-SCATTERGOOD, Andrew BENEDEK, Juan JOSSE, Ashwani KUMAR
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
The present description relates to press extractors for processing municipal solid waste or source separated organics, and can have large perforations for separation of a wet fraction from a liquid depleted fraction. The extractor can also be operated based on a target plug thickness of the liquid-depleted plug left over in the perforated chamber after compression. The extractors can facilitate good organics extraction yields, and lower operating pressures, among other benefits.
Claims28
An extraction system for processing waste material to form a wet fraction comprising organics and a liquid-depleted fraction, comprising:
- a barrel;
- a plunger received within the barrel and configured to displace axially within the barrel;
- a perforated chamber having perforations and being connected to a distal end of the barrel, the perforated chamber being configured to receive a load of waste material and a head of the plunger during axial displacement into the perforated chamber to compress the load of waste material to cause wet material to be expelled out of the perforated chamber through the perforations and form the wet fraction, the perforations being sized and configured to have a diameter between 20 mm and 40 mm and to provide a total open area between 10% and 40%.
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-49. (canceled)
An extraction system for processing waste material to form a wet fraction comprising organics and a liquid-depleted fraction, comprising:
- a barrel;
- a plunger received within the barrel and configured to displace axially within the barrel;
- a perforated chamber having perforations and being connected to a distal end of the barrel, the perforated chamber being configured to receive a load of waste material and a head of the plunger during axial displacement into the perforated chamber to compress the load of waste material to cause wet material to be expelled out of the perforated chamber through the perforations and form the wet fraction;
- wherein the load of the waste material comprises cellulosic materials, organic-rich liquid materials, and non-organic materials;
- and
- wherein the perforations are sized and configured such that at a compression pressure between 60 and 160 bar, the wet fraction and/or liquid-depleted fraction have one or more of the following characteristics:
- the wet fraction has at least 10 wt % paper;
- the wet fraction has a paper percentage greater than a paper percentage of the waste material;
- the wet fraction is composed of at least 5 wt % of cellulose-plastic components;
- the wet fraction has a plastic content between 6 wt % and 10 wt % the wet fraction has a plastics percentage that is between a quarter and a half of the plastics percentage in the waste material;
- the wet fraction has an organics yield of at least 70%;
- the liquid-depleted fraction has at most 15 wt % of the cellulosic materials;
- the liquid-depleted fraction has a percentage of the cellulosic materials that is lower than the cellulosic materials percentage of the waste material;
- the liquid-depleted fraction has an organics content below 20 wt %.
-56. (canceled)
An extraction system for processing waste material to form a wet fraction comprising organics and a liquid-depleted fraction, comprising:
- a barrel;
- a plunger received within the barrel and configured to displace axially within the barrel;
- a perforated chamber having perforations and being connected to a distal end of the barrel and configured to receive a load of waste material and to receive a head of the plunger during axial displacement into the perforated chamber to compress the load of waste material to cause wet material to flow out of the perforated chamber through the perforations and form the wet fraction and a liquid-depleted plug;
- and
- a control assembly configured to measure a position of the plunger to determine a measured plug thickness of the liquid-depleted plug, and control compression of the load of the waste material at least in part based on a target plug thickness of the liquid-depleted plug within the perforated chamber.
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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.