Method and apparatus for burning green wood chips

Claim 1

Apparatus for burning wood chips comprising a wood chips combusting furnace with an exhaust conduit communicating therewith and leading out of said furnace, a top vented vertically extending silo, separate from said furnace to prevent combustion of its contents but adjacent thereto, filled with a stack of porous cellular wood chips to provide a silo-encased continuous vertical chip column of substantial height, feed means for feeding wood chips from the lower end of said stack to said furnace, supply means for supplying moisture laden wood chips to the upper end of said silo to replenish chips withdrawn from said silo by said feed means, and manifold means on said silo to which said exhaust conduit leads communicating with the exhaust conduit of said furnace for peripherally discharging combustion gases from said furnace into the periphery of the stack of chips in said silo at a location below the top of said stack of chips contained therein to dry the chips in the upper portion of said stack as said gases pass upwardly therethrough to be vented from the top of said silo and to filter contaminants from said gases, said manifold means comprising a manifold band substantially surrounding said silo above the said feed means and substantially below and remote from the said wood chips supply means, there being perforations in the wall of said silo at said band placing the interior of said silo in communication with said manifold whereby combustion gases pass from said manifold into said stack perimetrally through said perforations.