Power plants – System having plural motors or having diverse types of... – System of plural motors having a common output structure
Reexamination Certificate
2001-06-19
2003-02-25
Nguyen, Hoang (Department: 3748)
Power plants
System having plural motors or having diverse types of...
System of plural motors having a common output structure
C060S626000, C060S039600, C060S683000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06523349
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention contains environmentally clean engine designs that emit zero or very low pollutant levels during operation. The CLEAN AIR ENGINE (CLAIRE) invention is directly applicable to both transportation type vehicles including automobiles, trucks, trains, airplanes, ships and to stationary power generation applications. The designs feature hybrid, dual cycle and single cycle engines.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The current art in generating power for transportation purposes basically utilize the internal combustion gas or diesel engine. The current art for electric power generation utilize gas turbines and/or steam turbines. These devices burn hydrocarbon fuels with air which contains (by weight) 23.1% oxygen, 75.6% nitrogen and the remaining 1.3% in other gases. The emissions resulting from the combustion of fuels for internal combustion engines (gasoline or diesel), with air contain the following pollutants that are considered damaging to our air environment. These smog causing pollutants, are: total organic gases (TOG); reactive organic gases (ROG); carbon monoxide (CO); oxides of nitrogen (NOx); oxides of sulfur (SOx); and particulate matter (PM). Approximately one half of the total pollutants emitted by all sources of air pollution in California are generated by road vehicles (Emission Inventory 1991, State of California Air Resources Board, prepared January 1994). The major source of this vehicle pollution comes from passenger cars and light to medium duty trucks.
No near term solutions appear in sight to drastically reduce the vast amount of air pollutants emitted by the many millions of automobiles and trucks operating today. Based on the State of California Air Resources Board study, the average discharge per person in California of the air pollutants from mobile vehicles, monitored by this agency during 1991 and reported in 1994, was approximately 1.50 lb/day per person. With a nationwide population of over 250,000,000 people, this data extrapolates to over 180,000 tons of air borne emissions per day being discharged in the USA by mobile vehicles. Also, the number of cars and miles that are being driven continue to increase, further hampering efforts to reduce smog causing pollutants.
Allowable emission thresholds are rapidly tightening by Federal and State mandates. These allowable emission reductions are placing severe demands on the transportation industry and the electric power generating industry to develop new and lower emission power systems.
Although considerable effort is being directed at improving the range of electric zero emission vehicles (ZEV) by developing higher energy capacity, lower cost storage batteries, the emission problem is been transferred from the vehicle to the electric power generating plant, which is also being Federally mandated (Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990) to reduce the same air toxic emissions as those specified for automobiles and trucks.
The current world wide art of generating power for consumers of electricity depends primarily on fossil fuel burning engines. These engines burn hydrocarbon fuels with air. As described above, combustion of fossil fuels with air usually produce combustion products that contain a number of pollutants. Current Unites States regulatory requirements prescribe the amounts of the atmospheric pollutants permitted in particular locations. Allowable pollutant thresholds are decreasing over time and thereby putting more and more pressure on industry to find better solutions to reduce these emissions of pollutants in the electric power generating industry and other power generating industries.
Other energy sources being developed to solve the emissions problem, by exploiting non combustible energy sources include fuel cells and solar cells. Developers are solving many of the technological and economic problems of these alternate sources. However, widespread use of these energy sources for vehicles and for electric power generating facilities do not appear to yet be practical.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides a means for developing a zero or very low pollution vehicle (ZPV) and other transportation power systems (i.e. rail and ship), as well as a zero or low pollution electric power generating facility. The zero or very low pollution is achieved by removing the harmful pollutants from the incoming fuel and oxidizer reactants prior to mixing and burning them in a gas generator or combustion chamber. Sulfur, sulfides and nitrogen are major pollutants that must be removed from the candidate fuels: hydrogen, methane, propane, purified natural gas, and light alcohols such as ethanol and methanol. Since air contains 76% nitrogen by weight, it becomes a major source of pollution that also requires removal prior to combining it with the clean fuel.
Cleansing of the fuel is straightforward and requires no further elaboration. The separation of the oxygen from the nitrogen in the air, however, is accomplished in a variety of ways. For instance, nitrogen can be removed from air by the liquefaction of air and gradual separation of the two major constituents, oxygen and nitrogen, by means of a rectifier (to be described later in more detail). The separation of the gases relies on the two distinct boiling points for oxygen (162° R) and for nitrogen (139° R) at atmospheric pressure. Air liquefies at an intermediate temperature of (142° R).
Other nitrogen removal techniques include vapor pressure swing adsorption, and membrane based air separation. With vapor pressure swing adsorption, materials are used which are capable of adsorption and desorption of oxygen. With membrane based air separation, an air feed stream under pressure is passed over a membrane. The membrane allows one component of the air to pass more rapidly there through than other components, enriching the amount of different components on opposite sides of the membrane. Such membranes can be of a variety of different materials and use several different physical processes to achieve the desired separation of nitrogen out of the air.
One embodiment of this invention consists of a hybrid power system that combines a Rankine cycle thermal cycle with an auxiliary electric motor for start-up and chill-down requirements. The thermal power cycle of the engine begins by compressing ambient air to high pressures, cooling the air during compression and during the expansion to liquid air temperatures in a rectifier where separation of the oxygen and nitrogen takes place. The cold gaseous nitrogen generated is used to cool the incoming air and then is discharged to the atmosphere at near ambient temperature. Simultaneously, the cold gaseous or liquid oxygen generated by the rectifier is pressurized to gas generator pressure levels and delivered to the gas generator at near ambient temperature. Fuel, gaseous or liquid, from a supply tank is pressurized to the pressure level of the oxygen and also delivered to the gas generator where the two reactants are combined at substantially the stoichiometric mixture ratio to achieve complete combustion and maximum temperature hot gases (6500° R). These hot gases are then diluted with water downstream in a mixing section of the gas generator until the resulting temperature is lowered to acceptable turbine inlet temperatures (2000° R).
The drive gas generated from this mixing process consists of high purity steam, when using oxygen and hydrogen as the fuel, or a combination of high purity steam and carbon dioxide (CO2), when using oxygen and light hydrocarbon fuels (methane, propane, methanol, etc.). Following the expansion of the hot gas in the turbine, which powers the vehicle or the electric power generating plant, the steam or steam plus CO2 mixture are cooled in a condenser to near or below atmospheric pressure where the steam condenses into water, thus completing a Rankine cycle. Approximately 75% of the condensed water is recirculated to the gas generator while the remainder is used for cooling and discharged to the atmosphere as warm water vapor. When using light hydrocarbons a
Clean Energy Systems, Inc.
Heisler & Associates
LandOfFree
Clean air engines for transportation and other power... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Clean air engines for transportation and other power..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Clean air engines for transportation and other power... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3163280