GB480955A - Process and apparatus for making combustible gas - Google Patents

Abstract

480,955. Gas manufacture. STRYKER, A. R., and TIETIG, C. Aug. 28, 1936, No. 23668. Convention date, Sept. 30, 1935. [Classes 55 (i) and 55 (ii)] In the production of combustible gas by showering finely divided solid or liquid hydrocarbonaceous material or passing a gaseous hydrocarbonaceous substance downwardly through a zone of sufficient length and temperature to gasefy the material, the gases are withdrawn from an incandescent fuel bed maintained at the bottom of the zone. The starting material, which may comprise solids such as coal, mine refuse, wood, sugars, straw, corn stalks, and coconut, liquids such as petroleum, gas oil, still bottoms, kerosene, butane, ethylene, cotton seed oil, fats, and fatty acids, or gases such as natural gas, refinery gas and coal gas, is fed to the top of a retort 10 superimposed above an intermittently operated generator 17. Before the gas making operation, the fuel bed, preferably coal, is raised to incandescence by up and down blasting with air supplied through inlets 58 and 62, with or without steam introduced through inlet 61. The gas obtained is vented through stack 72<1>, and heating is continued until the retort reaches a temperature of about 1400‹ F. During the heating operation steam is generated in a waste heat boiler 34 arranged in the offtake 33, and is utilized to operate a turbine connected to an exhauster 67 which creates the necessary suction in the generator during the gas making stage and withdraws the generated gas through offtake pipe 60 to a wash box 39. The gas is withdrawn at any desired level from the fuel bed through apertures 52, Fig. 3, in the bricks composing the lining of the generator which communicate with channels 53 therein. Each of the latter is connected at four equidistant points with corresponding exterior valvecontrolled manifolds 46, which latter discharge into the offtake pipe 60. The gas may also be withdrawn beneath the grate, the hydrogen content of the gas increasing with depth of withdrawal. The fuel bed is maintained by coal or coke fed thereto from a hopper 19 through ports 18. The retort-generator may be 80 to 90 feet in height and preferably of double conical shape ranging from 11 feet at its widest part to 4 feet at its apex.