Brown University

Other

The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc.

Joseph M Calo

Daniel I Harjes

Eric M Suuberg

D Andrew Dineen, Jr

Liang Guo

Valerie J Bloomfield

Madhavan Lakshmi

Johannes Kirchner

Euan Bain

A system is provided for removing arsenic from water to safe levels at or below the EPA standards. The system is a hybrid spouted vessel/fixed bed filter system that significantly enhances/improves arsenic removal for drinking water using zero-valent iron (ZVI) particles. Movement of the circulating, iron-containing particles in a dense moving bed that forms on the spouted vessel bottom creates an abrasive 'self-polishing' action among them that continuously generates colloidal iron corrosion products. This material then circulates with the water in the vessel and is removed and concentrated in a fixed bed filter. The colloidal material captured and immobilized in the filter has been shown to remove arsenic from contaminated water at very rapid rates.

Arsenic removal system

The present invention relates to methods and systems related to fuel cells, and in particular, to direct carbon fuel cells. The methods and systems relate to cleaning and removal of components utilized and produced during operation of the fuel cell, regeneration of components utilized during operation of the fuel cell, and generating power using the fuel cell.

Methods for continuous direct carbon fuel cell operation with a circulating electrolyte slurry

Disclosed herein is a method and system for sorting recycled solid waste materials, such as plastics, by a liquid-fluidized bed classifier (LFBC) technique. The application of a LFBC to the separation of plastics, and in particular plastic particles, is shown to be advantageous for a number of reasons. Firstly, the primary fluidization medium, i.e., water, is present in large quantities during conventional chopping, washing, and flotation operations that are performed during plastics recycling operations. Secondly, the natural density distribution of the major types of recycled plastics favors segregation by density in water, i.e., the 'lighter-than-water' polyolefins, polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) from the 'heavier-than-water' polystyrene (PS) PVC and PET plastics. The latter types of plastics have been found to separate spatially in an upflow LFBC, while the 'lighter-than-water' plastics can be collected at the top of the column, thereby combining flotation and classification in a single step. Further separation of the polyolefins can be accomplished in a second LFBC operating in a downflow mode. Thirdly, any overlap of density distributions between types of plastics is overcome via selective modification of plastic particle size/density. A fourth advantage of the LFBC spatial separation is that the separated plastic particles can be collected by hydraulic flow from the appropriate section of the column and supplied to simple gravity separators for particle recovery, and also for disengaging the fluidizing water for recycling, thereby enabling the continuous classification of plastic particles with both continuous feed and product removal.

Liquid-fluidized bed classifier (LFBC) for sorting waste plastics and

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Greenville, RI, United States of America

Joseph M Calo