Patent ID: 8677769

Claim:
A mineral recovery system comprising: a desalination system using compressed air to create super chilled air that can be released to flash freeze seawater droplets in a vessel, wherein fresh drinking water and a concentrated brine mixture can be produced thereby; a crystallization chamber for introducing said concentrated brine mixture produced by said desalination system and mixing said concentrated brine mixture with the super chilled air produced by said desalination system to form a super chilled slurry mixture, wherein an agitator for mixing said super chilled slurry mixture is provided at or near the bottom of said crystallization chamber; multiple stilling chambers communicating with said crystallization chamber provided around the perimeter of said crystallization chamber into which said super chilled slurry mixture can be distributed, wherein each stilling chamber comprises: 1) at least one valve for releasing a predetermined quantity of said super chilled slurry mixture into said stilling chamber; 2) at least one strainer for removing ice particles from said stilling chamber; 3) at least one agitator for mixing said slurry within said stilling chamber; 4) at least one brine outlet for draining leftover brine mixture from said stilling chamber; and 5) at least one sludge outlet for draining leftover sludge mixture from said stilling chamber; a trough onto which the ice particles removed by said strainer can be placed which allows the ice particles to melt to produce relatively clean water; a brine pipe communicating with said brine outlet of each of the multiple stilling chambers for distributing said leftover brine mixture from the multiple stilling chambers to an associated brine storage tank for storing said brine mixture, and a sludge mixture pipe communicating with said sludge outlet of each of the multiple stilling chambers for distributing said leftover sludge mixture from the multiple stilling chambers to an associated sludge storage tank for storing said sludge mixture; and wherein a valve control system is provided adapted to allow a predetermined amount of said slurry mixture to be introduced into each of said stilling chambers at a predetermined rate in succession, wherein once a first of said stilling chambers has completed its cycle, more of the slurry mixture from said crystallization chamber can be introduced into said first stilling chamber.