The United States of America As Represented by the Administrator of the

David Dubis

Earl R Collins, Jr

Jerry W Suitor

A continuous flow ash lockhopper includes an ash hopper at the outlet of a high temperature, high pressure reactor vessel containing heated high pressure gas, a fluidics control chamber having an input port connected to the ash hopper's output port and an output port connected to the input port of a pressure letdown means, and a control chamber connected to a variable pressure control fluid (gas or steam) supply for regulating the pressure in the control chamber to be equal to or greater than the internal gas pressure of the reactor vessel, whereby the reactor gas is contained while ash is permitted to continuously flow from the ash hopper's output port, impelled by gravity. The fluidics control chamber may be provided with a variable port to inject control fluid at a desired velocity. The control fluid impinges the flow of ash into the chamber at a right angle to create a vortex in the chamber with the vortex path being from the input port around the output port and then crossing generally over the output port offset from the input port.

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Morgantown, WV, United States of America

David Dubis