Patent ID: 11203725

Abstract:
Carbonaceous-containing material including biomass, municipal solid waste, and/or coal and/or contaminated soil, and/or other carbonaceous materials may be gasified at low temperatures utilizing a reactor designed to generate shockwaves in a supersonic gaseous vortex. Preprocessed waste may be introduced into the reactor. A gas stream may be introduced substantially tangentially to an inner surface of a chamber of the reactor to generate a gaseous vortex rotating about a longitudinal axis within the chamber. The gas stream may be introduced using a nozzle that accelerates the gas stream to a supersonic velocity, and may impinge on an impactor positioned within the reactor chamber. A frequency of shockwaves emitted from the nozzle into the gaseous vortex may be controlled. The processed waste discharged from the reactor, which may include a gas component and at least a solid component, can be subjected to separation, and at least some of the gas component and at least one solid component (i.e., tars) may be fed back to the feeding device so that the solids from the processed waste condense on preprocessed waste contained in the feeding device and are reprocessed within the reactor. The gas component from the feeding device may be cleaned after the solids have been condensed out in the feeding device.