Radial counterflow shear electrolysis

Abstract

Coaxial disk armatures, counter-rotating through an axial magnetic field, act as electrolysis electrodes and high shear centrifugal impellers for an axial feed. The feed can be carbon dioxide, water, methane, or other substances requiring electrolysis. Carbon dioxide and water can be processed into syngas and ozone continuously, enabling carbon and oxygen recycling at power plants. Within the space between the counter-rotating disk electrodes, a shear layer comprising a fractal tree network of radial vortices provides sink flow conduits for light fractions, such as syngas, radially inward while the heavy fractions, such as ozone and elemental carbon flow radially outward in boundary layers against the disks and beyond the disk periphery, where they are recovered as valuable products, such as carbon nanotubes.

Description

APPLICATION HISTORY[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Applications Nos. 61 / 034,242 filed Mar. 6, 2008 and 61 / 026,963 filed Feb. 7, 2008.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention applies to mechanically-assisted electrolytic dissociation in a continuous process. One particular application of the reactor according to the present invention is simultaneous electrolysis of carbon dioxide and water to produce syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, thus providing means for carbon and oxygen recycling at IGCC power plants. Another application is electrolysis of water or methane to produce hydrogen for fuel. Yet another application is cracking of CO2 as an alternative to carbon sequestration. And another application is high volume continuous synthesis of carbon or other nanotubes.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONCarbon Dioxide Emissions.[0003]It is generally agreed that carbon dioxide emissions must be brought under control, but technology has not kep...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0045]Discharges through evolving conductive tubular structures of heavy fraction electrolysis products knit them together and turn them into cathodes pointing into the feed and attracting more carbon ions to their evolving ends Less conductive carbon structures, such as soot, are vaporized and recycled by the current due to their greater resistance, and therefore do not clutter production of high quality metallic nanotubes.

[0046]Electrode erosion by falling ions is prevented by spinning the electrodes so that the falling ions chase a moving target and their trajectory becomes tangential to the electrode. The high turbulence of the gas in the shear layer between the electrodes destroys any incipient current path between the electrodes, and acts as a dynamic dielectric.

[0047]Because of the protection of the dynamic dielectric and the rotation of the electrodes, carbon does not deposit on the electrodes and catalyst coking is prevented. Carbon ions and carbon particles rotate in self-tightening coherent radial vortices in the shear layer. Rotation of the carbon ion vortex causes a solenoidal magnetic f

Problems solved by technology

It is generally agreed that carbon dioxide emissions must be brought under control, but technology has not kept pace with policy.

There is no economical means for carbon capture and sequestration at coal plants.

Amine scrubbing and underground storage, the leading current proposals for carbon capture and sequestration, would be prohibitively expensive, and there is good reason to doubt that they would be reliable.

The volume of the waste stream is overwhelmingly large.

The air-blown gasifier is inferior to the gasifier which uses pure oxygen.

The enormous volume and weight that must be transported and injected, and the lack of any assurance that the carbon dump will remain secure, should give preference to some sort of treatment at the plant instead of dumping, but presently no carbon dioxide treatment is feasible for the large volumes of hot and dirty waste gas emitted by utilities and industries.

Cement plants and refineries and steel mills are also heavy polluters.

Transporting that much weight and putting that much volume underground every year would be an expensive undertaking.

Buried carbon dioxide gas may percolate back to the surface and leak out to harm people or at least escape into the atmosphere.

Nuclear waste is still without a site for permanent sequestration, and its volume is minuscule compared to the volume of carbon dioxide waste from only one plant.

If the pressure is incr

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