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. The apparatus may further comprise an agitator positioned in a conduit operatively connected to an outlet from the chamber, the agitator adapted to displace any condensate formed in the conduit.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 12 / 897,434, which is a continuation of Ser. No. 11 / 935,760, which claims priority to U.S. provisional application No. 60 / 864,529. The entire disclosure of these applications being hereby incorporated herein by reference. This application also claims priority to International Application No. PCT / US2010 / 046461 filed on Aug. 24, 2010, and published in English on Mar. 10, 2011 as WO 2011 / 028515, which claims priority of U.S. provisional application No. 61 / 236,343 filed on Aug. 24, 2009. The entire disclosure of these applications being hereby incorporated herein by reference.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 ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]Aspects of the present invention provide methods and apparatus for substantially continuously treating feed materials containing compounds to produce usable liquid hydrocarbons, such as fuel oil, and other usable products. One aspect of the invention is an apparatus for pyrolyzing feed materials containing compounds containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen material, such as, comminuted tire material, the apparatus including: an elongated pyrolysis chamber having an inner surface and one or more inlets for introducing the comminuted tire materials; a conveyor for continuously conveying the comminuted tire materials and pyrolysis products thereof through the pyrolysis chamber while substantially simultaneously removing build-up of the tire material and the pyrolysis products from the inner surface of the pyrolysis chamber; means for maintaining a temperature within

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.

However, none of these non-tire-related disclosures include a flexible, center-less screw, or a gas discharge agitator, or a reverse condensation recovery treatment of the gases.

However, Unverferth does not disclose treating tires: Unverferth treats shale.

For instance, the clearance between the vessel of Unverferth and the screw of Unverferth is not effective in transferring tire material.

As the present inventors have found, such a rigid construction is prone to failure due to the binding of the screw with the typically viscous byproducts of tire pyrolysis.

In addition, prior art devices, such as, that described by Masemore, are also prone to failure due to plugging the gaseous hydrocarbon venting conduits.

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