Methods and apparatus for pyrolyzing material

Abstract

Methods and systems for substantially continuously treating comminuted material containing carbon and hydrogen, for example, used tires, are provided. The methods include the steps of introducing the tire material to an elongated chamber, transferring the tire material through the elongated chamber, heating the tire material to a temperature sufficient to pyrolyze the material to produce a gaseous stream; discharging the gaseous stream from the chamber, and cooling at least some of the gaseous stream to liquefy components of the stream. The transfer may be effected by a flexible, center-less screw conveyor to minimize material buildup in the vessel. The cooling of the gaseous stream may be practiced by reverse condensation. One or more re-usable fuel streams are provided by aspects of the invention.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims priority from pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60 / 864,529, filed on Nov. 6, 2006, the disclosure of which is included by reference herein in its entirety.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The present invention relates to the processing of materials having organic components, such as, used tires, to recover usable hydrocarbons, such as fuels, and / or metals. In particular, aspects of the present invention include processes for treating used tires to recover usable fuels.[0004]2. Description of Related Art[0005]Used tires can pose significant environmental problems attendant to piles of discarded tires and also can create fire hazards. In the United States, nearly 300 million tires are discarded each year in addition to the estimated one billion scrap tires that are already in some form of storage. These numbers are according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.[0006]Tires are h...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]The present invention also provides an apparatus for pyrolyzing feed materials containing compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen material, the apparatus including: (1) one or more elongated pryolysis chambers each have one or more inlets and one or more outlets, and of suitable construction for the containment of the feed material and at least one of a liquid, a gaseous, and a solid pyrolysis products thereof; (2) means for continuously conveying the feed material and pyrolysis products thereof through the pyrolysis chamber whil

Problems solved by technology

Used tires can pose significant environmental problems attendant to piles of discarded tires and also can create fire hazards.

Although collection and recycling of common waste polymers is more prevalent today, still a large portion of these materials is still discarded because of the cost of recycling and only limited technologies are available to sustain economically viable recycling.

Techniques have also been studied to recover material values (as opposed to destructive burning), but these techniques have been largely unsuccessful for technical or economic reasons.

However, because pyrolysis technology and conditions prevalent heretofore, typically, instead of producing quality products, the results of prior art pyrolysis processing have commonly been the production of low value hydrocarbons, poor quality syngas, and low activity carbon black, among other things.

Though some of those attempts appear to have been technically possible and / or may have been successful in pilot scale demonstrations, the technologies used did not allow for appropriate up-scaling or commercialization of the process because of the difficulty in reliably processing the material in an economical manner.

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