Patent ID: 9724703
Date: 2017-08-08
CPC Classifications: B01J,B02C

Claim:
1. A system for processing solid materials, the system comprising: a solid material feeder; a reactor having a chamber, a solid material inlet, a gas inlet, and an outlet, the reactor being configured to facilitate chemical reactions and comminution of solid feed material using tensive forces of shockwaves in a supersonic gaseous vortex within the chamber, the solid material feeder being configured to provide solid material into the chamber of the reactor through the solid material inlet, the solid material being processed within the chamber by nonabrasive mechanisms facilitated by the shockwaves within the chamber, the outlet including a venturi tube configured to (1) pressurize the chamber and (2) effectuate a rapid cooling of the processed solid material exiting the reactor to reduce occurrences of back reactions; a gas source configured to provide a stream of gas to the gas inlet; and storage configured to collect processed material that is communicated through the outlet of the reactor; wherein the gas inlet includes an inlet nozzle that is structured such that the stream of gas provided by the gas source is accelerated to a supersonic speed and shockwaves are emitted from the inlet nozzle into the chamber, the inlet nozzle being further structured such that shockwaves introduced into the chamber are controlled to occur at different frequencies.