Midwest Research Institute

The United States of America As Represented by the United States

John W Scahill

James P Diebold

Helena L Chum

Robert J Evans

Richard L Bain

Ralph P Overend

Bahman Rejai

A process for conversion of a feedstock selected from the group consisting of biomass and refuse derived fuel (RDF) to provide reformulated gasoline components comprising a substantial amount of materials selected from the group consisting of ethers, alcohols, or mixtures thereof, comprising: drying said feedstock; subjecting said dried feedstock to fast pyrolysis using a vortex reactor or other means; catalytically cracking vapors resulting from said pyrolysis using a zeolite catalyst; condensing any aromatic byproduct fraction; catalytically alkylating any benzene present in said vapors after condensation; catalytically oligomerizing any remaining ethylene and propylene to higher olefins; isomerizing said olefins to reactive iso-olefins; and catalytically reacting said iso-olefins with an alcohol to form ethers or with water to form alcohols.

Process to convert biomass and refuse derived fuel to ethers and/or

An improved vortex reactor system for affecting fast pyrolysis of biomass and Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) feed materials comprising: a vortex reactor having its axis vertically disposed in relation to a jet of a horizontally disposed steam ejector that impels feed materials from a feeder and solids from a recycle loop along with a motive gas into a top part of said reactor.

Improved vortex reactor system

A flexible whip or a system of whips with novel attachments is suspended in a hopper and is caused to impact against fibrous and irregularly shaped particulates in the hopper to fluidize the particulates and facilitate the flow of the particulates through the hopper. The invention provides for the flow of particulates at a substantially constant mass flow rate and uses a minimum of energy.

Fluidizing device for solid particulates

Growing community of inventors

Evergreen, CO, United States of America

John W Scahill