Methods are provided to prepare a low sulfur fuel from hydrocarbon sources, such as light tight oil and high sulfur fuel oil, often less desired by conventional refiners, who split crude into a wide range of differing products and may prefer presence of wide ranges (C3 or C5 to C20 or higher) of hydrocarbons. These fuels can be produced by separating feeds into untreated and treated streams, and then recombining them. Such fuels can also be formulated by combinations of light, middle and heavy range constituents in a selected manner as claimed. Not only low in sulfur, the fuels of this invention are also low in nitrogen and essentially metals free. Fuel use applications include on-board large marine transport vessels but also on-shore for large land based combustion gas turbines, boilers, fired heaters and transport vehicles and trains.

A system for producing high-quality gas includes a heat carrier hoist, a coke feeder, a heat carrier heating furnace, a gas mixer, a high-temperature induced draft fan, a heat carrier storage tank, a dryer, a hopper, a concentrating solar collection pyrolysis-gasification reactor having a double-tube structure, a three-phase separator and a coke collecting bin. The system may use an adjustable concentrating solar collection technology in combination with a heat carrier circulation heating process, so as to effectively solve heat requirements of the waste pyrolysis and gasification process, reduce the waste material consumption caused by energy supply, and improve the effective utilization of raw materials.

A device and process for the conversion of aromatic compounds, includes/uses: a unit for the separation of the xylenes suitable for treating a cut comprising xylenes and ethylbenzene and producing an extract comprising para-xylene and a raffinate; an isomerization unit suitable for treating the raffinate and producing an isomerate enriched in para-xylene which is sent to a fractionation train; a pyrolysis unit suitable for treating biomass, producing a pyrolysis effluent feeding, at least partially, the feedstock, and producing a pyrolysis gas comprising CO and H.sub.2; a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reaction section suitable for treating, at least in part, the pyrolysis gas, producing a synthesis effluent sent, at least in part, to the pyrolysis unit.

This invention relates to a power recovery process in waste steam/CO.sub.2 reformers in which a waste stream can be made to release energy without having to burn the waste or the syngas. This invention in some embodiments does not make use of fuel cells as a component but makes use of exothermic chemical reactors using syngas to produce heat, such as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. It also relates to control or elimination of the emissions of greenhouse gases in the power recovery process of this invention with the goal of producing energy in the future carbonless world economy.

Exemplary apparatus or method implementations for a universal feeder system configured with a transfer screw feeder within a multi-section clamshell pipe permitting access to the feed screw and pipe interior for inspection, maintenance and/or cleaning during production, without disassembly or screw removal. The clamshell screw feeder pipe provides access to the screw by opening or removing the multi-section top portion of the clamshell pipe. The top pipe section is bolted and or hinges to the bottom portion of the clamshell pipe. The number of segmented multiple clamshell top sections depends on the length of the screw. One or more clamshell top sections may be configured with an inspection port. The universal feeder system configured with a transfer screw feeder within a multi-section clamshell pipe transfers feedstock feed from one or more feed vessels to one or more reactor vessel.

The present invention generally relates to improved catalysts that provide for reduced product contaminants, related methods and improved reaction products. It more specifically relates to improved direct fuel production and redox catalysts that provide for reduced levels of certain oxygenated contaminants, methods related to the use of those catalysts, and hydrocarbon fuel or fuel-related products that have improved characteristics. In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a method of converting one or more carbon-containing feedstocks into one or more hydrocarbon liquid fuels. The method includes the steps of: converting the one or more carbon-containing feedstocks into syngas; and, converting the syngas to one or more hydrocarbons (including liquid fuels) and a water fraction. The water fraction comprises less than 500 ppm of one or more carboxylic acids.

A method and process arrangement for producing hydrocarbons from polymer-based waste in which the polymer-based waste is gasified with steam at low temperature in a gasifier for forming a product mixture, and the temperature is 640-750° C., and the product mixture is supplied from the gasifier to a recovery unit of the hydrocarbons for separating at least one hydrocarbon fraction.

Herein disclosed are apparatus and associated methods related to producing an enhanced surface area biochar product with a desired activation level based on receiving biochar into a processing vessel configured with multiple independently temperature-controlled chambers and counter-flow steam injection, controlling activation levels of the biochar by moving the biochar through the processing vessel and adjusting the temperature of the biochar by injecting steam into at least one temperature-controlled chamber of the processing vessel, recovering volatiles driven off through dehydration using a thermal oxidizer, cooling the biochar to a desired discharge temperature using steam and retention time, and discharging the activated biochar product. The processing vessel may be a calciner, a rotary calciner, or a kiln. Biochar may be heated or cooled to a desired thermochemical processing temperature depending on the temperature of the received biochar. Counter-flow saturated steam may sweep volatile gases to a thermal oxidizer using a vacuum system.

A cooling wall includes: a wall surface defined by arrangement of central axes of a plurality of cooling tubes; and an opening formed in a part of the wall surface in which a burner is installable, each of the plurality of cooling tubes forming the opening has a straight portion and a curved portion, the plurality of cooling tubes include a first cooling tube whose first virtual axis extending in an axial direction of the straight portion overlaps the opening, and a second cooling tube whose second virtual axis extending in an axial direction of the straight portion is located outside an outer circumference of the opening in a radial direction, the curved portion of the first cooling tube is arranged so as to form a curve along the outer circumference surface of the opening and on a surface along the wall surface.

Apparatus and associated methods relate to drying a wet coated seed material stream comprising an incoming wet granular biosolids stream mixed with a controlled size dried seed material recycling stream to produce a moist air and pellet stream, separating an uncontrolled size dried pellet stream from the moist air and pellet stream, diverting a recycle portion of the uncontrolled size dried pellet stream to be recycled, diverting the remainder of the uncontrolled size dried pellet stream to an outlet, resizing oversized pellets from the recycle portion of the uncontrolled size dried pellet stream to produce the controlled size dried seed material recycling stream, and mixing the controlled size dried seed material recycling stream with the incoming wet granular biosolids stream to produce the wet coated seed material stream. Oversized pellets may be selected using a screen. The oversized pellets may be resized using a crusher inline with the recycle stream.