Patent ID: 8454896

Claim:
An inclined cylindrical rotating reactor comprising an axis of rotation, granules of material treated within the reactor, a granules of material flow regime, at least one mixing device and an inert purge gas, wherein at least one mixing device has holes to introduce the inert purge gas into the reactor, wherein the axis of rotation is central and not parallel to the horizontal line perpendicular to the force of gravity, the granules of material flow regime is characterized by a Froude Number Fr =(ω 2 ×R/g) comprised in the range of 1×10 −4 to 0.5 ; where ωis the angular velocity of the reactor; R is the internal radius of the reactor and g is the gravity of acceleration =9.806 m/s; and the at least one mixing device has a height, width, and an equivalent length defined as the distance between the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation that contains the point where the mixing device first protrudes from the reactor wall and the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation that contains the point where the mixing device stops protruding from the wall and the equivalent length of the mixing device is selected from the group consisting of equivalent lengths less than 1/10th the length of the reactor, so as the granules of the material treated within the reactor pass through the reactor due to the force of gravity as well as the reactor rotation with a plug flow like behavior.