EFFICIENT DRYING AND PYROLYSIS OF CARBON-CONTAINING MATERIAL

摘要

A method and apparatus for drying and pyrolysing carbon-containing materials to produce valuable products including char, oil, gas and thermal energy. The present invention involves a method whereby carbon-containing material 1 is maintained in a heated region predominantly free of oxidizing gases to promote pyrolysis reactions, and the thermal energy required to drive the process is provided via the combustion of a proportion of the volatilized matter with an oxygen containing gas in the same chamber 3. The arrangement of the chamber 3 eliminates the need for any form of solid physical barrier between the concurrent pyrolysis and combustion reactions occurring in the process, and also avoids any requirement for external means of recirculating the gaseous volatilized matter. The present invention also relates to a method for improving the transfer of thermal energy from the combustion to pyrolysis zones via radiative and convective heat transfer mechanisms.