Process for the pyrolytic treatment of organic, pseudo-organic and inorganic material

Claim 1

A process for transformation of the chemical structure of organic matter, pseudo-organic and inorganic materials into recoverable useful compounds, or forms, by pyrolytic conversion, comprising the steps of: a. conveying material continuously through a pyrolytic chamber; b. restricting air flow into the pyrolytic chamber so as to result in negligible oxidation of the material; c. heating the material with radiant heat to progressively cause decomposition by thermal breakdown resulting in the conversion of the material to product gaseous, vapor, liquid and solid constituents; d. maintaining the pyrolytic chamber at a pressure at least as great as the ambient pressure to thereby substantially prevent the material from being exposed to air and any other oxidizing agents in the ambient atmosphere during heating; e. applying a pressure gradient which continuously guides the gaseous-vapor stream with entrained droplets and particulates immediately upon formation through a bottom portion of the pyrolytic chamber formed with a plurality of troughs having sloping walls, from said troughs into corresponding take-off tubes, and from said take-off tubes into corresponding collection containers; f. selectively condensing, collecting and recovering for reuse liquid condensate fractions obtained from said gaseous vapor stream through the use of a series of temperature controlled primary and secondary condensers connected via a fluid transfer manifold to the top of said collection containers; g. collecting and recovering for reuse the gaseous constituents of said gaseous-vapor stream; h. scrubbing the non-condensible portion of said gaseous contituents with adsorptive and absorptive scrubbers to remove droplets, particulates and pollutents; i. accumulating the solid products of the pyrolytic conversion process at the exit end of the pyrolytic chamber; j. cooling, sorting and continuously conveying away the solid products for reuse; and k. diverting combustible gas and vapor constituents of the product gaseous-vapor stream to a combustion chamber wherein the combustible gas and vapor constituents are burned and heat is thereby generated for the pyrolytic process, and wherein the combustion chamber is separated from the pyrolytic chamber by a heat transfer barrier.