Sludge digesters with separate liquid chambers to buoy ballast members
AssigneeBaker Hughes Incorporated
InventorsJeffrey L. Wight, Lynn W. Cook, David P. Brown
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A gas-holding sludge digester is disclosed having a sideskirt which telescopes in a liquid chamber which is separate from a main digester tank and wherein the ballast is structured to increase gas pressure of the gas contained within the cover as the sideskirt telescopes upward.
Claims11
A process for digesting sludge and recovering gas therefrom comprising:
- maintaining a quantity of liquid sludge within a reservoir;
- capturing evolved gas from said liquid sludge within a variable volume enclosure;
- maintaining a predetermined, substantially constant pressure upon said gas by submerging ballast members connected to said variable volume enclosure in a liquid separate from said liquid sludge while permitting an increase in gas volume from a first predetermined volume to a second predetermined volume;
- increasing said pressure variably upon said gas from said second predetermined volume to a third predetermined volume by partially emerging ballast members from said liquid separate from said liquid sludge.
A process for operating ballasting sludge digesters having a liquid sludge-containing reservoir and having a cover having a top and depending sidewalls to contain evolved gas and which floats upon said evolved gas and having dense ballast members attached to said cover comprising:
- submerging said ballast members in a liquid;
- maintaining said ballast members in a submerged condition to maintain a substantially constant pressure of gas;
- emerging said ballast members to increase pressure upon said gas as said gas volume expands;
- and
- sealing said gas from escaping by maintaining the sidewalls of said cover immersed in a liquid separate from the sludge within said digester during all pressure conditions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.