Patent ID: 7752845
Filing Date: 2010-07-13
Classification: B01J,C10G,F01D,F03G,G06Q,H02K,Y02E,Y02P

Abstract:
1. A rotating, synchronous reaction cell that extracts hydrogen gas from water, mixes the gas with carbon in a cyclic flow through catalyzing beds, separates liquid from gaseous reaction products and expels liquid product, and expands steam through a turbine to cause rotation and turn a generator, the enumerated chemical processes, as well as other underlying processes within said enumerated processes, being integrated into a unitized rotating device, the rotating unit and its stationary support thereby being suitable by the self-contained design, for mounting and operating atop a tower and solar energy for process heat, and being a liquid-hydrocarbon-fuel synthesizer, in which water is accelerated in a centrifuge, said centrifuge interior first resembling a thin cylindrical-shell void but having a circular array of vanes that extend from the outer radius to the inner radius of the cylindrical shell void, and from the top radial plane to the bottom radial plane of the cylindrical shell, said vanes accelerating water or other fluid within said centrifuge, in which heat is applied to the cylindrical outer-radius, exterior surface of said centrifuge, said centrifuge thereby being a water heater and centrifuge, in which said heat is transferred to water bearing against the inner-radius interior surface of the outer-radius containment wall of said water heater and centrifuge and said vanes emanating inward therefrom, in which the transfer of heat to the water inside said water heater and centrifuge raises the number of water molecules having sufficient energy to disassociate into hydrogen and oxygen according to the Maxwell distribution of energy, in which hydrogen gas in the centrifuged water is driven radially inward by induced buoyancy, as compressed water that is heated in said water heater and centrifuge is channeled through a circular plenum to a turbine where steam expands through said turbine that causes rotation of said water heater and centrifuge, in which radially-inward-driven hydrogen gas collects in a stacked array of gas-trapping pockets, the stacked array enclosing said water heater and centrifuge at the inner-radius and providing a watertight boundary; said gas-trapping pockets being a narrow annular void divided into a circular array of smaller cavities by vanes disposed in the interior thereof, having interior surfaces made of a hydrogen-permeable and hydrogen-selective membrane material, and being closed at the inner radius thereof, in which hydrogen gas trapped by buoyancy in the gas-trapping membrane pockets permeates through said hydrogen-selective membrane material and enters a gas inlet of a hydrocarbon synthesizer; said gas-trapping membrane pockets enclosing said gas inlet at the outer radius; said hydrocarbon synthesizer, water heater and centrifuge, and turbine rotor turning at the same angular speed as one assembly, in which hydrogen gas entering said gas inlet of said hydrocarbon synthesizer is mixed with injected carbon at the entrance of a compressor, the hydrogen gas and carbon passing through said compressor that mixes and pressurizes the reactants, in which the pressurized mixture of hydrogen gas and carbon is channeled into one or more condenser beds; said condenser beds having multiple, cascading layers of screens that are secured in tension by the rigid frame of said condenser bed, said rigid frame having a matrix, grid or honeycomb of smaller sieve pockets penetrating the radial distance through said rigid frame, with each smaller sieve pocket therein having multiple, cascading layers of screens in the radially-outward direction, in which said screens are coated with platinum-group, catalyzing metals and in which said screens trap larger carbon particles and hold the carbon in suspension in furrows disposed between perforations through said screens or by other similar means, and in the path of fluid molecules flowing through said perforations through said screens, in which the catalyzing material of said condenser beds causes various reactions of hydrogen and carbon within said sieve pockets of said condenser beds, the various reactions producing a variety of hydrocarbon molecules, in which products exiting at the outer radius of said condenser beds are channeled into an adjoining liquid-gas-separating centrifuge where the products are segregated by density, so that gaseous hydrocarbon molecules and hydrogen gas are drawn out from said centrifuge into the low-pressure inlet of a recirculating blower disposed at the inner radius of said liquid-gas-separating centrifuge while liquid hydrocarbon molecules and fine carbon solids accumulate in said liquid-gas-separating centrifuge, in which said recirculating blower exhausts the gaseous hydrocarbon molecules and hydrogen gas drawn from said liquid-gas-separating centrifuge, into said gas inlet of said hydrocarbon synthesizer where the exhausted gaseous mixture combines with hydrogen gas that has permeated through said hydrogen-selective membranes, the blended gas stream entering said compressor that mixes and pressurizes hydrogen and carbon before channeling the mixture into said condenser beds, in which float valves, that are disposed in a circular array around the interior surface of the outer-radius containment wall of said liquid-gas-separating centrifuge, have an effective density, including spring force, of about that of liquid hexane, such that, as hydrocarbons that are denser than liquid hexane accumulate, a predetermined radial depth of accelerated liquid hydrocarbons causes said floats to rise radially inward, off valve seats that surround exhaust ports that penetrate through the outer-radius containment wall of said liquid-gas-separating centrifuge, in which opening said exhaust ports allows liquid hydrocarbons and entrained carbon solids having a density greater than hexane to exit said hydrocarbon synthesizer, such that the all of the described parts and processes rotate as a unit turned by the expansion of steam through said steam turbine; the rotation causing buoyancy in said water heater and centrifuge, evacuating water from said gas-trapping pockets, recirculating gaseous hydrocarbons and hydrogen molecules through one or more said catalyzing condenser beds where said recirculation builds hydrocarbon molecules until a desired density is reached, and the centrifuging of the reaction products which isolates and exhausts denser liquid hydrocarbons.