Process to produce hydrogen and oxygen utilizing the energy content of waste materials

Claim 1

A self sustaining continuous process for production of high purity hydrogen and oxygen by the disposal of solid and liquid, combustible and non-combustible wastes, which process comprises the steps of: (i) reducing said solid waste to a suitable and uniform size and recovering metal waste therefrom, (ii) drying said reduced solid waste, (iii) feeding said solid and liquid wastes to a fluidised-bed incinerator operated at at least atmospheric pressure together with combustion air and hydrogen produced by electrolysis wherein the ratio of combustible to non-combustible feeding materials and air supply is controlled and regulated such that the requirement for supplementary fuel is either eliminated or minimized and the optimum incineration conditions are continuously maintained, (iv) recovering water produced from incineration of said liquid wastes, (v) recovering thermal energy from said incinerator in a heat recovery means to produce steam which is used to drive a steam turbine, (vi) employing said heat recovery means or said steam turbine to drive a generator alternator to produce electricity, (vii) producing hydrogen and oxygen from at least a portion of the water of step (iv) by electrolysis using at least a portion of the electricity of step (iv), (viii) removing pollutant species from solid, liquid and gaseous emissions of said incinerator, (ix) recycling a portion of the hydrogen of step (vii) to the fluidised-bed incinerator of step (iii) as fuel and recycling a portion of the oxygen of step (vii) when additional excess oxygen is required for the incineration, (x) recycling a portion of the electricity of step (vi) to operate other steps of the process as required, (xi) recycling a portion of the water of step (iv) to operate other steps of the process where water is consumed, and (xii) employing the thermal energy from said incinerator as heat in other steps of the process where heat is consumed.