System for generating brown gas and uses thereof

Abstract

A system for the generation, storage and use of Brown's gas comprising at least one Brown's gas generator, in communication with an electricity supply and water supply; at least one first storage chamber, in fluid communication with the generator, for storing the Brown's gas generated from said generator; and Brown's gas application means in communication with said at least one first storage chamber, wherein said generator and first storage chamber are located proximate the Brown's gas application means. For example, the Brown's gas may be used for the production of hot water, for the production of chilled water and as fuel in an incineration unit.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a 35 U.S.C. 371 national phase application of International Application No. PCT / SG2007 / 000313, filed Sep. 13, 2007, which International Application was published by the International Bureau in English on Mar. 20, 2008, and claims priority to Singapore Patent Application No. 200606177-4, filed Sep. 13, 2006, and Singapore Patent Application No. 200702442-5, filed Apr. 4, 2007, each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0002]The present invention relates to a system for generating Brown's gas and uses thereof for different applications.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Natural gas is commonly used for domestic and industrial purposes. However, there is growing concern on the use of natural gas as a source of fuel to meet the increasing needs, such as heating, of households and factories. Greenhouse emissions from the combustion of natural gas include carbon dioxide, sulphur d...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0019]In a different application, such as for a residential development, “proximate” may include a central location within the residential development. This is compared to, and differentiated from, conventional energy supply, such as mains electricity, whereby generation may occur several kilometres away from the development. Thus, in this case, “proximate” will be defined as within a usable location, not requiring substantial infrastructure before the final distribution for use, as compared to conventional energy supply which is “remote” in terms of generation and / or storage and so requiring substantial infrastructure for distribution. Accordingly, in the present invention, one advantage of having the generator and first storage chamber located proximate the Brown's gas application means is to increase the efficiency of the system. Such an arrangement would also reduce the costs for providing less infrastructure when compared to relying on external sources for energy.

[0139]The scrubbing assembly may further comprise a means for cooling the flue gas before being discharged into the atmosphere. Any suitable means for cooling the flue gas may be used. For example, the means for cooling the flue gas is a quencher. The means for cooling the flue gas may cool the flue gas to a temperature of less than 300° C. The advantage of cooling the flue gas prior to being discharged into the atmosphere is that this may prohibit the reformation of dioxins and furans in the atmosphere. The means for cooling may be connected to an air filter system to further remove particulates and fly ash in the flue gas.

Problems solved by technology

Another problem with natural gas is its long-term economic viability and availability due to increased global demand compared to the global shortage of supply of natural gas.

A further problem is that not all countries have their own source of natural gas and, accordingly, rely heavily on other countries to obtain natural gas.

A network of exposed pipelines and terminals over a vast area is not only costly to build and maintain, but also highly vulnerable to external influence such as natural disaster or terrorist threats.

However, conventional incinerator is increasingly faced with several problems.

For example, an incineration plant consumes large amounts of fuel to burn waste.

Due to the increased global demand for natural gas and the global shortage of supply of natural gas, traditional thermal incineration is a very expensive means for waste management.

To mitigate the impact, new incineration plants are sited further away from populous areas, resulting in high transportation cost of waste, fuel and other supplies which are required for the operation of the incineration plant over the extended distance.

A further problem is that the discharge of dioxins and furans to the atmosphere as a result of incomplete combustion during incineration of domestic and industry waste poses a serious health threat to the community.

This has led to increasing pressure from environmentalists to impose stringent control and regulations over the disposal of dioxin- and furan-producing waste.

However, this will lead to an increase in operation costs as fuel consumption will increase.

These approaches, however, cannot be directly incorporated into existing incineration facilities.

In another example airborne particulate matter emissions and flue gas emissions are still a prevalent problem.

It is also widely known that such emissions pose a significant environmental and health risk.

As a result of the processes, the constituents of the emissions may be harmful to the environment if discharged into the atmosphere without further treatment.

However, to a large extent, these only aid in reducing particulate matter within the emissions and flue gas and partially treat the constituents of the flue gas and emissions.

Therefore, when the “treated” emissions and flue gas is discharged into the atmosphere, the emissions and flue gas may still contain harmful constituents which may be hazardous to the environment.

For example, cyclones have a low overall particulate collection efficiency, especially for particulate sizes below 10 mm.

In the case of ESPs, though effective in treating the emissions and flue gas, these are very expensive to install and maintain.

They also require a large space for installation.

Also, ozone may be produced by the negatively charged electrodes of the ESPs during gas ionization, which adds to the environmental problems.

Fabric filter systems are also expensive in that costly refractory mineral or metallic fabric is required when operated at temperatures in excess of about 290° C. There also exists an explosion and fire hazard of certain dusts at certain concentrations in the presence of accidental sparks or flames.

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