Patent ID: 8715980

Claim:
A method of performing processing operations on a flowable feed material in a drillhole reactor, the flowable feed material being composed of a carrier liquid, reactants to be subjected to and to take part in the processing operations, and gas bubbles of predetermined sizes and/or contents that are entrained in or formed in the carrier liquid and which perform functionally in the processing operations, said reactants comprise organic cellular material having cells from which valuable substances are to be recovered, the method comprising the steps of: flowing the feed material which comprises a slurry of the cellular material, the flowable carrier liquid and gases including the gas bubbles from a ground surface level down a confined path or drill hole which descends underground by a substantial vertical distance to a working depth so that the pressure experienced by the feed material at that working depth is substantially greater than the ground surface level whereby the cellular material is exposed to substantially increased pressure and osmotic gas transfer from the bubbles to the carrier liquid and thence into the cells of the cellular material and into their inner vesicles but without active pressurization; providing working conditions for the flowing feed material at the working depth to utilise the relatively high pressure in performing the processing operations on the cellular material and so produce a flowable output material, the working conditions including conditions to produce rapidly changing pressures by means of depth change, choking and decompression, including decompression and the formation of pressurised gas within the cells that cannot osmose out sufficiently quickly to avoid cell and vesicle rupture as a result of rapid ascent of the flowing feed material, that induces lysis of the cellular material and thereby produces reaction products which are included in the flowable output material; and returning to the ground surface level an output slurry of lysed cellular material and substances released by the lysis for processing and separation of released valuable substances.