| MCCUTCHEN CO. Patent applications |
| Patent application number | Title | Published |
|---|
| 20110265480 | RADIAL COUNTERFLOW STEAM STRIPPER - Turbine exhaust steam, axially fed between counter-rotating radial flow disk turbines, separates into: (1) a radially inward flow of low enthalpy dry steam, and (2) a radially outward flow of high enthalpy steam, noncondensibles, and condensate. The radially inward flow goes to a conventional condenser. The radially outward flow loses enthalpy turning the disk turbines as it passes in the boundary layers against the disks, thus becoming low enthalpy dry steam, and the counter-rotation of the disks by impinging mass flow of condensate, high enthalpy steam, and noncondensibles sustains a cascade of dynamic vortex tubes in the shear layer between the boundary layers. The low enthalpy dry steam resulting from work being done flows into the condenser through the vortex cores of fractal turbulence. Condensate exits the periphery of the workspace, ready to be pumped back into the Rankine cycle. More condensate is recovered from the low enthalpy vapor in the condenser. Heat rejection from the cooling water circuit is easier because a significant mass fraction does not enter the condenser. Dynamic evaporative cooling of cooling water, uses fractal turbulence between counter-rotating centrifugal impellers, fed at their common axis of rotation with cooling water. Chilled water flows radially outward to recirculation, and hot water and vapor flows radially inward to the impeller axis of rotation. Vapor is stripped through the vortex cores of fractal turbulence into a condenser where it condenses as distilled water. Ultimate heat rejection is into the environment without discharge of vapor. | 11-03-2011 |
| 20110232875 | VAPOR VORTEX HEAT SINK - A hermetic Rankine cycle in a sealed casing powers an internal centrifugal condensate pump with an internal vapor turbine during forced convective heat transfer between a heat source and a heat sink. No work is imported into the cycle during operation. A centrifugal pumping disk shears the working fluid against a heating surface, sweeping evolving vapor into radial vortices which provide sink flow conduits to a vapor space at the center of the cylindrical turbine. Convective mass flow through the vapor space to the condensing end of the casing spins the turbine and the centrifugal pumping disk which is connected to it. Vapor is continuously swept from the heating surface, so bubbles do not form and superheat while blocking heat flux into liquid working fluid. Vapor is sucked through the radial vortices into the central vapor space and into the condensing end of the casing along the low pressure gradients in vortex cores established by cooling power. A high heat flux surface is thereby thermally connected to a conventional heat sink having high cooling power, for maximal heat extraction at data centers or other heat sources. Vapor vortices organize counterflow of vapor and condensate in a continuous mass flow cycle, and extract work from heat. Organic working fluids can be used in the casing to make even low temperature waste heat a power source. | 09-29-2011 |
| 20110219948 | RADIAL COUNTERFLOW CARBON CAPTURE AND FLUE GAS SCRUBBING - Carbon capture is effected by mechanical means, producing out of flue gas a concentrated, cleaned, and cooled stream of carbon dioxide. This is a new method of carbon capture which avoids the limitations of known cryogenic, membrane, or chemical capture methods. | 09-15-2011 |
| 20100307665 | REACTORS FOR FORMING FOAM MATERIALS FROM HIGH INTERNAL PHASE EMULSIONS, METHODS OF FORMING FOAM MATERIALS AND CONDUCTIVE NANOSTRUCTURES THEREIN - An RF inductor such as a Tesla antenna splices nanotube ends together to form a nanostructure in a polymer foam matrix. High Internal Phase Emulsion (HIPE) is gently sheared and stretched in a reactor comprising opposed coaxial counter-rotating impellers, which parallel-align polymer chains and also carbon nanotubes mixed with the oil phase. Stretching and forced convection prevent the auto-acceleration effect. Batch and continuous processes are disclosed. In the batch process, a fractal radial array of coherent vortices in the HIPE is preserved when the HIPE polymerizes, and helical nanostructures around these vortices are spliced by microhammering into longer helices. A disk radial filter produced by the batch process has improved radial flux from edge to center due to its area-preserving radial vascular network. In the continuous process, strips of HIPE are pulled from the periphery of the reactor continuously and post-treated by an RF inductor to produce cured conductive foam. | 12-09-2010 |
| 20100146927 | HYBRID POWER FOR CRACKING POWER PLANT CO2 - Power from wind, solar, and other intermittent energy sources cracks carbon dioxide, NOx, SOx, and other emissions from fossil fuel power plants, which provide baseload power to the grid. By this hybrid power system, intermittent sources can be integrated in power generation without compromising the reliability of the grid and without long power line connections. Carbon dioxide becomes, in effect, a storage medium for energy produced by intermittent sources. The CO | 06-17-2010 |
| 20090263309 | SHEAR REACTOR FOR VORTEX SYNTHESIS OF NANOTUBES - Continuous nanotube synthesis by vortex deposition occurs in an axially-fed shear reactor comprising coaxial counter-rotating disk impeller/electrodes charged as anodes. Nanotube evolving ends, charged as cathodes, point toward the anode axis of rotation and protrude into the space between the anodes. Radial vortices in a shear layer of the space, between the boundary layers on the impeller/electrodes, spin cations to be deposited on evolving nanotube ends approximately at the vortex axis, so deposition is by swirling cathode fall. The evolved nanotubes are extracted mechanically, and they conduct electrons from charging means to charge the evolving ends as cathodes. The preferential synthesis of metallic carbon nanotubes is due to the greater resistance of non-metallic structures such as graphite or semiconductive structures. Ozone serves to oxidize non-metallic structures and to functionalize the loose ends of nanotube fragments. Dopants can be added to the evolving nanotubes by introduction of dopants at the periphery because the evolving ends are maintained in stable locations. Or dopants can be added by the simultaneous decomposition of gases (for example, carbon dioxide and nitrogen gas) within the reactor or in an external reactor. | 10-22-2009 |
| 20090242174 | VAPOR VORTEX HEAT SINK - A hermetic Rankine cycle in a sealed casing powers an internal centrifugal condensate pump with an internal vapor turbine during forced convective heat transfer between a heat source and a heat sink. No work is imported into the cycle during operation. A centrifugal pumping disk shears the working fluid against a heating surface, sweeping evolving vapor into radial vortices which provide sink flow conduits to a vapor space at the center of the cylindrical turbine. Convective mass flow through the vapor space to the condensing end of the casing spins the turbine and the centrifugal pumping disk which is connected to it. Vapor is continuously swept from the heating surface, so bubbles do not form and superheat while blocking heat flux into liquid working fluid. Vapor is sucked through the radial vortices into the central vapor space and into the condensing end of the casing along the low pressure gradients in vortex cores established by cooling power. A high heat flux surface is thereby thermally connected to a conventional heat sink having high cooling power, for maximal heat extraction at data centers or other heat sources. Vapor vortices organize counterflow of vapor and condensate in a continuous mass flow cycle, and extract work from heat. Organic working fluids can be used in the casing to make even low temperature waste heat a power source. | 10-01-2009 |
| 20090241545 | RADIAL COUNTERFLOW STEAM STRIPPER - Turbine exhaust steam, axially fed between counter-rotating radial flow disk turbines, separates into: (1) a radially inward flow of low enthalpy dry steam, and (2) a radially outward flow of high enthalpy steam, noncondensibles, and condensate. The radially inward flow goes to a conventional condenser. The radially outward flow loses enthalpy turning the disk turbines as it passes in the boundary layers against the disks, thus becoming low enthalpy dry steam, and the counter-rotation of the disks by impinging mass flow of condensate, high enthalpy steam, and noncondensibles sustains a cascade of dynamic vortex tubes in the shear layer between the boundary layers. The low enthalpy dry steam resulting from work being done flows into the condenser through the vortex cores of fractal turbulence. Condensate exits the periphery of the workspace, ready to be pumped back into the Rankine cycle. More condensate is recovered from the low enthalpy vapor in the condenser. Heat rejection from the cooling water circuit is easier because a significant mass fraction does not enter the condenser. Dynamic evaporative cooling of cooling water, uses fractal turbulence between counter-rotating centrifugal impellers, fed at their common axis of rotation with cooling water. Chilled water flows radially outward to recirculation, and hot water and vapor flows radially inward to the impeller axis of rotation. Vapor is stripped through the vortex cores of fractal turbulence into a condenser where it condenses as distilled water. Ultimate heat rejection is into the environment without discharge of vapor. | 10-01-2009 |
| 20090200176 | RADIAL COUNTERFLOW SHEAR ELECTROLYSIS - Coaxial disk armatures, counter-rotating through an axial magnetic field, act as electrolysis electrodes and high shear centrifugal impellers for an axial feed. The feed can be carbon dioxide, water, methane, or other substances requiring electrolysis. Carbon dioxide and water can be processed into syngas and ozone continuously, enabling carbon and oxygen recycling at power plants. Within the space between the counter-rotating disk electrodes, a shear layer comprising a fractal tree network of radial vortices provides sink flow conduits for light fractions, such as syngas, radially inward while the heavy fractions, such as ozone and elemental carbon flow radially outward in boundary layers against the disks and beyond the disk periphery, where they are recovered as valuable products, such as carbon nanotubes. | 08-13-2009 |
| 20090159461 | ELECTROHYDRAULIC AND SHEAR CAVITATION RADIAL COUNTERFLOW LIQUID PROCESSOR - Axially fed fluid is sheared during long residence time in a radial workspace between counter-rotating coaxial disk-shaped centrifugal impellers. Gases evolve in the fractal turbulence of a shear layer, which is forced between laminar boundary layers, and an axial suction pump axially extracts evolved noncondensibles and volatiles through cores of radial vortices in the shear layer. Cavitation due to shear between the impellers kills pathogens by shock waves, microjets, OH radicals, and nearby UV light pulses. Oppositely charged electrodes bounding the workspace cause electroporesis and electrohydraulic cavitation. The electrodes are counter-rotating ridged armatures of disk dynamos, forming a dynamic capacitor having audio frequency pulsed electric fields. Electrode erosion by arcing is prevented by shear between the electrodes. | 06-25-2009 |
