Patent Publication Number: US-6910430-B1

Title: Resources reclaiming apparatus

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
   The present invention relates to a resources reclaiming apparatus and particularly to an apparatus for rapidly decomposing and vitrifying hazardous materials to become nontoxic. 
   BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
   Presently Taiwan generates a great amount of daily waste such as ashes, industrial discarded soils, industrial wastes, discarded solid materials, waste oil, waste solution, discarded liquid, sludge, other liquid type wastes, etc. On the other hand, gravel used in construction projects is generally made by crushing stones and rocks excavated from rivers or mountains. They are called natural gravel for building bridges and roads and used as fillers in the civil engineering and construction projects to increase the strength and rigidity of reinforced concrete or asphalt roads. As the natural gravel is excavated from nature, their surfaces are contaminated with organic substances and bacteria. As a result, corrosion often occurs to the asphalt road surface that contains gravel, and the asphalt road surface tends to crack and damage. Moreover, natural gravel has different compositions. After crushing to a small rock fragments, the inner tissue is destroyed and the strength decreases significantly. This also reduces the pressure resistance and loading power of the concrete structure and shortens the service life. This is a big drawback of natural gravel. Furthermore, with increasing awareness of environmental protection and conservation, excavating the rivers to get the natural gravel often results in loss of soil, unbalances the ecosystem, and causes serious damage to the natural environment, thus it is neither sustainable nor commendable in the long run. 
   In addition, with the fast progress of industrial and commercial developments, and increased living standards, a great deal of advanced products has been produced to meet people&#39;s requirements. These products often involve complicated manufacturing processes and generate a great amount of waste. This waste has become a serious threat to the environment. Hence processing discarded soil and industrial wastes has become an important and urgent issue. Otherwise as industry and commerce thrives, the environment rapidly deteriorates. 
   Therefore to produce an environment-friendly building material and recycle hazardous ashes, slag, industrial wastes, discarded soils, discarded solid materials, waste oil, waste solution, discarded liquid, sludge, other liquid type wastes and the like to become reusable products that have economic value so that the resources may be reclaimed, and second preventing a public hazard has become a highly pursued goal for nearly every country around the world. This issue is especially prevalent in Taiwan because of the increased awareness of environmental protection and new environmental protection regulations. Moreover, the general public has a great aversion toward treatment of hazardous industrial wastes, ashes, discarded soil (sludge), and land resource is limited, to locate desired landfill is increasingly difficult, and hazardous wastes are not permitted to be dumped in landfill sites. Some wastes such as industrial wastes, ashes, and discarded soil (sludge) are contaminated with hazardous heavy metal and dioxins, they are very difficult to treat and handle. 
   The conventional treatment approach for hazardous ashes, industrial wastes, discarded soil (sludge) generally is to dump into a landfill or incinerate to reduce volume and weight. Disposing industrial wastes and discarded soil without a thorough plan, or simply dumping ashes and slag into landfills will result in harmful substances seeping underground polluting water. To use slag as road material, sea barrier and building concrete will generate toxic dust when the road and building are cutaway or damaged because the hazardous materials are usually permanent heavy metal, or dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyl. Discarding of construction, industrial wastes and soils often creates a second public hazard. It causes an environmental pollution that has harmful effect to human health. Hence discarding or dumping the wastes into landfills cannot thoroughly resolve the problem. Residual dioxins in the ashes produced by the incinerators are also difficult to treat and handle. All these problems remain to be overcome. 
   SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
   Therefore the present invention aims to provide a resource reclaiming apparatus to solve the serious problem of processing dioxins and heavy metal pollution. The invention, aside from sintering waste materials and discarded soils, also can transform and reclaim the wastes to become environment-friendly gravel and building material. High temperature waste gases are channeled to a thermal reclaiming device through a smoke duct to process hazardous materials so that the hazardous materials may be decomposed and vitrifying for storing. 
   In one aspect, the apparatus according to the invention delivers filtered diesel fuel to a pump for compression and transfers the fuel to a throttle valve; then delivers the fuel to an inlet of a combustion device through a piping system; the fuel is indirectly heated in the combustion device and sent to a nozzle; then is atomized through a helical means to be mixed with the heated air in the combustion device; a vortex is generated through a firing nozzle and a fire-resistant structure in a combustion chamber of the furnace; a circulating mixing is performed continuously to generate evenly high temperature so that the materials are melted and discharged through a duct on one side of the furnace to become the environment-friendly gravel and building material. 
   The invention provides the following features and advantages:
         1. The invention has air ducts extending into a scattering and dispensing chamber at one end on one side so that materials are fed into the mixing and dispensing chamber through a helical feeding device at the bottom of a mixing and dispensing chamber. The air ducts can blow and scatter the materials to facilitate burning.   2. The invention recycles the heated gas to scatter dusts and ashes so that they are easier to be decomposed under heat and melted. It also can replenish the air in the furnace without absorbing heat or lowering the temperature.   3. The invention includes a second combustion chamber in the furnace that has a concave upper wall in the interior to increase the strength of the furnace. During burning at high temperature, an arched vortex is formed in the furnace to lengthen the burning time, and result in a higher temperature at the bottom to be discharged through an outlet. The upper section of the second combustion chamber may generate a higher temperature, and the higher temperature is circulated. High temperature exhaust gas is discharged through a discharge duct to allow the ashes to be decomposed and vitrifying.   4. The invention can produce gravel and building material after sintering. The reclaimed man-made gravel and building material have high value. And second pollution may also be prevented.       

   The foregoing, as well as additional objects, features and advantages of the invention will be more readily apparent from the following detailed description, which proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings. 

   
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG. 1  is a perspective view of the present invention. 
       FIG. 2  is a schematic view of the present invention showing the feeding device scatters the feeding material. 
       FIG. 3A  is a schematic view of the present invention showing the discharge device being adjusted for discharging molten material. 
       FIG. 3B  is a schematic enlarged view of the discharge device of the present invention. 
       FIG. 4  is a schematic view of the invention showing fire vortex formed inside the combustion chamber of the furnace. 
       FIG. 5  is a schematic view of the invention showing fire vortex formed inside the combustion chamber and the second combustion chamber of the furnace. 
       FIG. 6  is a schematic top view of the invention showing heated air distribution of the thermal reclaim device. 
   

   DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT 
   Referring to  FIG. 1 , the resources reclaiming apparatus according to the invention mainly includes a material feeding device  1 , a furnace  2 , a combustion device  3 , a thermal reclaim device  4  and a discharge device  5 . 
   The material feeding device  1  is located above the furnace  2 . It has a mixing and dispensing chamber  10  located at an upper side. On one side of the mixing and dispensing chamber  10 , there is a scattering and dispensing chamber  11  which has a viewing port  13  on an upper end and is covered by an upper lid  15 . At the bottom of the mixing and dispensing chamber  10 , there is a helical feeding device  14 . The scattering and dispensing chamber  11  has intake ports  24  and  25  at the bottom on the right side of the furnace  2  abutting the top end thereof (referring to  FIGS. 2 and 4 ). 
   The furnace  2  is a cylindrical barrel located below the material feeding device  1  and connects to the scattering and dispensing chamber  11 . It has a furnace door  20  at one end movable by a pair of chains  200  in a synchronous manner. The furnace door  20  may be opened to see the burning condition of a combustion chamber  21  located on one side of the interior thereof. The discharge device  5  is equipped with an oil pressure cylinder  50  and located at the bottom of one end of the furnace  2  (referring to  FIGS. 1 ,  2 ,  3 A and  3 B). The combustion device  3  is located on one side of the furnace  2 , and the thermal reclaim device  4  is located at the front end of the furnace  2 . In the interior of the furnace  2 , there is an arched spacer  212  on one side. The spacer  212  has one end forming an arched section  213  which has a distal end forming a sloped section  214  directing upwards. The sloped section  214  has one end extended outwards to form a plane spacer which has a firing port  211 . The spacer  212  has a concave bottom surface  215 . The spacer  212  divides the furnace  2  into the combustion chamber  21  and a second combustion chamber  22 . The combustion chamber  21  has a duct  210  at the bottom leading to outside of the furnace  2 . The second combustion chamber  22  is located at the bottom of the combustion chamber  21  (referring to  FIGS. 4 and 5 ). The second combustion chamber  22  has an ellipsoidal chamber  220  formed by the concave bottom surface  215  that can enhance the sturdiness of the combustion chamber  21  and the second combustion chamber  22 . In addition, there is a gas discharge chamber  221  formed on the inner wall outside the second combustion chamber  22 . The gas discharge chamber  221  communicates with a discharge duct  40  of the thermal reclaim device  4 . The intake ports  24  and  25  are located on the right side of the upper end of the furnace  2 , and there is a port  23  formed on the left side at the upper end of the furnace  2 . The port  23  communicates with inlets  30  and  300  of branch ducts  301  and  302  of the combustion device  3 . There are air ducts  320  and  330  above the intake ports  24  and  25  that are connected to one side of one end of the scattering and dispensing chamber  11 . 
   The combustion device  3  is located on one side of the furnace  2  and has the inlets  30  and  300  formed on an inner wall to communicate with the port  23  on the left side of the furnace  2 . The combustion device  3  is connected to a pipe  31  which further connects to a thermal reclaim duct  41  of the thermal reclaim device  4 . The pipe  31  has elbow tubes  310  and  311  on two sides. The elbow tube  310  has one end connecting to the branch ducts  301  and  302 . Another elbow tube  311  has one end connecting to branch ducts  32  and  33 . The branch ducts  32  and  33  have air ducts  320  and  330  communicating with the intake ports  24  and  25  on the right side of the upper end of the furnace  2 . 
   The thermal reclaim device  4  is located at the front end of the furnace  2  with the gas discharge duct  40  located therein. The gas discharge duct  40  is connected to the thermal reclaim duct  41  which has one side connecting to the pipe  31 . The gas discharge duct  40  is also connected to an external air treatment apparatus. 
   The discharge device  5  is located at the bottom of one end of the furnace  2 . It is driven by the oil pressure cylinder  50 . Depending on waste and soil types burned in the furnace  2 , the furnace  2  may be adjusted and tilted at a selected angle (referring to  FIGS. 3A and 3B ). By means of the construction set forth above, a complete resource reclaiming apparatus is formed. To manufacture environment-friendly gravel and building material refer to  FIGS. 2 through 6 . The process is as follows:
         1. The mixing and dispensing chamber  10  of the material feeding device  1  transports materials  6  (wastes and soils) which are conveyed by the helical feeding device  14  at the bottom of the mixing and dispensing chamber  10 , and scattered in the scattering and dispensing chamber  11 . The air ducts  320  and  330  can rapidly blow the materials  6  into the combustion chamber  21  of the furnace  2  (referring to  FIGS. 2 and 6 ). The materials  6  are heated at high temperature and melted in a desired condition. Depending on the materials  6  (wastes and soils), the oil pressure cylinder  50  of the discharge device  5  may be actuated to adjust the tilting angle of the furnace  2  (referring to  FIGS. 3A and 3B ).   2. When the combustion chamber  21  of the tilted furnace  2  is burning, cool air is fed by a high pressure fan on one side of the furnace  2  and heated by the thermal reclaim device  4  through the smoke stack, and conveyed to the inlet  30  to be mixed with diesel fuel through a helical blender.   3. The diesel fuel is filtered and pumped to a throttle valve, and delivered through the pipe  31  to the inlet  30  of the combustion device  3 , and indirectly heated therein and transferred to a nozzle to be atomized and mixed with air in the combustion device  3  for burning. The fire (indicated by arrows in  FIG. 4 ) moves along the arched section  213  and sloped section  214  of the spacer  212 , and continues upwards to generate circulation, and enters the second combustion chamber  22  through the fire port  211 . Fire in the second combustion chamber  22  not only absorbs the high temperature of the spacer  212 , also generates a vortex (referring to  FIG. 5 ) that continuously forms circulation and mixing to produce an even high temperature so that the materials  6  are melted  60  and flow out through the duct  210  on one side of the furnace  2  (referring to  FIGS. 3A and 3B ) to become environment-friendly gravel and building material. Exhaust gas after high temperature burning passes through the thermal reclaim device  4  through a smoke stack, and is processed by the air treatment apparatus to become clean and non-hazardous condition to be discharged through the smoke stack. Thus the hazardous materials can be rapidly processed and decomposed and vitrifying for storing.   4. After high temperature burning, the general toxic materials have only a small amount of dioxin residue remaining to be treated. Thus the invention can decompose and vitrify toxic materials for storing, or recycle and reclaim the toxic materials to become environment-friendly gravel and building material.