Rotary high temperature reactor

Claim 1

In a rotary high temperature reactor comprising a rotary drum of heat resistant material mounted for rotation about a substantially horizontal axis, said drum comprising a peripheral shell and a plurality of vanes extending longitudinally of and within said shell to define passages closed at their radially outer side by the shell and open at their radially inner side; means for rotating the drum; means for feeding solid combustible material to be treated into one end of the drum; means for collecting treated solid material from the other end of the drum, the drum being adapted, upon rotation, to feed solid material from the inlet to the outlet end thereof; and means for supplying gas for treatment of the solid material into the ends of the passages defined between the vanes, such gas supplying means being adapted to supply the gas only into those passages which at that particular time, during use of the reactor, are covered by said material being tumbled in the drum, the improvement comprising: (a) the gas supply means being adapted to supply hot gas to the drum and through the solid material, the gas having insufficient air to complete the combustion of solid materials in the drum but having a temperature sufficient to liberate combustible gases from the solid material, the combustible gases being given off from the outlet end of the drum during use of the reactor; (b) burner means for supplying hot gas to said gas supply means, and valve means for supplying part only of the hot gas from the burner to the gas supply means; (c) conveying means for conveying the combustible gases from the drum to said burner means; (d) means for supplying additional air to the combustible gases given off from the outlet end of the drum and for feeding the resulting air-combustible gas mixture to said burner means to complete the combustion thereof and to provide hot gas for the gas supply means; and (e) the vanes within the shell of the drum each having a flange at their inner end, said flanges extending in a substantially circumferential direction opposite to the direction of rotation of the drum to resist the entry into the passages between the vanes of solid material being treated in the drum, each flange substantially overlapping an immediately adjacent vane to define circumferentially directed gas outlet slits between the edges of the flanges and the vanes overlapped thereby.