Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology – Apparatus – Bioreactor
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-30
2002-05-21
Redding, David A. (Department: 1744)
Chemistry: molecular biology and microbiology
Apparatus
Bioreactor
C435S286500, C435S286600, C435S290400
Reexamination Certificate
active
06391627
ABSTRACT:
The present application is concerned with the treatment of any permeable mass of materials, gathered for that purpose, within a containment including products, minerals, waste and refuse, arising from domestic/municipal/industrial/commercial and agricultural sources, including excavated soils, using physical and/or chemical and/or micro biological processes to diminish the physical volume and/or to isolate, diminish or remove, metabolise change or otherwise modify, noxious chemical and microbial species contaminating or contained within the mass of such materials.
The present invention arises out of a development of the SBS Close Lance System described in UK Patent Number 22808035 which is particularly, but not exclusively, concerned with the in-situ bio-remediation of soil, in which micro-organisms and other means are used to degrade contaminants in soil and by such means physically degrade the materials under treatment to reduce the levels of contamination within them.
The SBS system administers resources required to engender a variety of biotic and/or abiotic reactions within the soil mass. It can be engineered to include means of increasing the nutritional value and reactive potential of those resources in respect of the microbial populations and chemical species utilised in the reactions.
There are number of known ways of removing contaminants from a permeable mass, each of which is known as a migratory pathway. These include:
direct suction, direct pumping of free flowing fluid contaminants including contaminated fluids and leachates.
leaching infusing another fluid to displace a contaminant and make it available for extraction by forced ejection, direct pumping or other means.
solubilisation dissolution of the containment in a polar or non-polar solvent infused for the purpose of leaching
volatilisation removing volatile fractions of a contaminant by passing air through the contaminated mass.
bio-remediation removing contaminants by micro-biological means in which soil resident microbial populations of fungi, bacteria and yeasts are encouraged desorb the pollutant from any substrate, and or metabolise the contaminants to obtain energy for their own life functions. In so doing the contaminants are respectively, either, removed from the substrate, and delivered to the advective flow of a leaching medium or changed into new chemical species which are generally innocuous.
The SBS system as described in Patent No. 2280835 exploits all of these pathways using a piped network including soil penetrating lances through which pass fluids at sufficient volume and pressure to impinge up on a series of overlapping volumes of soil be means of soil penetrating lances. The system caters for the selective, timed and repetitive distribution of defined quantities of key resources necessary to exploit those migratory pathways.
In this application the merits and practicalities of the SBS system are extended to the treatment of a variety of such materials and substances where they exist or are gathered in one place for the purpose of such treatment.
The use of biotic solutions for the continuous treatment of leachate from all forms of processes including landfill leachate is already common practice. Moreover the chemical treatment of liquid industrial wastes in continuous end of pipe treatment systems are also well known. Indeed the treatment of industrial leachates afflicted with inorganic pollutants is often dealt with by continuous treatment involving wholly chemically induced abiotic solutions. All these are accepted as being part of the prior art and do not themselves form a part of this patent application.
In this application the term:
Controlled waste. shall means waste described as controlled or hazardous waste in the Environmental Protection Acts and Control of Pollution Acts and any statutory instruments made under those enactments.
Forest products shall mean timber or any material derived from timber or the fibres or particles of timber.
Indexing Manifold shall mean a device which has the ability to divert key resources passing through a supply hose, to one or more selected lance at a time and which is under the control of the SBS control unit as disclosed UK Patent Application No. 2 320 081 A published Oct. 6, 1998.
Key resources shall mean the plurality of fluid biotic and abiotic resources required for the promotion of the biotic, abiotic or other physical and chemical processes initiated by use of the SBS system including, but not exclusively, compressed gasses, liquid innoculums containing a variety of chemical species and or viable biotic organisms, and gas blown particulate matter which may also be biotic or abiotic.
Lances, shall mean a hollow tubes with outlets described in UK Patent No 2280835 as a soil penetrating lance. In this invention such lances shall be considered as part of the piped network used to penetrate any treatable mass of remediable materials.
Outlet shall mean an orifice upon any part of the piped network described in UK. Patent No 2280835.
Piped network shall mean a system of interconnected pipes controlled by valves each controlled by the SBS system according to UK. Patent No 2280835 by now provided in the present invention to convey key resources to individual volumes of a treatable mass of remediable materials gathered within a refillable containment.
Protocol shall mean the detailed design and application of any particular treatment.
Remediable materials or Remediable mass shall mean any substance or mixture of substances gathered into or occurring as a permeable mass, in liquid, particulate, granular or any other physical form where the individual components of the mass are independently mobile in the widest possible sense and which are, in whole or in part, susceptible to transformation into any number of other substances or biotic organisms, by reason of biotic or abiotic processes.
Refillable Containment shall mean a container or confined volume of space of any size, purposefully constructed on over or under the ground or floating in or on water, in man made or occurring naturally space including, but not exclusively, mines, quarries and caves, with or without a roof or cover, which is suitable for the containment of remediable materials during treatment and which may be filled, emptied and refilled on a batched or continuous basis.
SBS Unit will be used hereinafter to mean the central control unit 22, within the piped network as described in Patent No. 2280835.
SBS System will be used hereinafter to mean the whole of the system described in UK Patent No 2280835.
Treatable mass shall mean any quantity or remediable materials which is gathered in one place for treatment by the present invention.
Treatment shall mean any treatment designed to diminish the physical volume of the remediable material and/or to isolate, diminish or remove, unwanted chemical species contained within the mass of remediable material by the administration of biotic and abiotic resources on a timed and repetitive basis.
Void space shall mean the empty space between particles or articles or remediable materials.
Void ratio shall mean the ratio of void space to the volume of remediable material enclosing that space.
Zone of influence shall mean the volume of remediable materials directly affected by the release of key resources from an outlet upon the piped network.
Waste minimisation through recycling, re-use and recovery is becoming an increasingly important issue for both environmental and financial reasons. This is witnessed by the UK Government's current efforts to ensure that 25% of controlled waste is composted by the year 2000. Waste sorting at source is the fundamental of efficiency in any materials reclamation system but on the macro scale success is dependant upon mass participation. So it is inevitable that recovery and recycling from mixed waste will continue to form a substantial activity well into the future. Clearly there is a need for an accelerated form of economically viable recycling which is not dependant upon high energy input. Even waste that is
Nixon & Vanderhye
Redding David A.
SBS Technology (GB) Ltd.
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