U.S. patent application number 15/618031 was filed with the patent office on 2017-09-28 for method and apparatus on halting global warming.
This patent application is currently assigned to GhG SaviorTech, Corp.. The applicant listed for this patent is Hsiao-Yuan Li. Invention is credited to Hsiao-Yuan Li.
Application Number | 20170275173 15/618031 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 47438773 |
Filed Date | 2017-09-28 |
United States Patent
Application |
20170275173 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Li; Hsiao-Yuan |
September 28, 2017 |
Method and apparatus on halting global warming
Abstract
We have described herein a method and associated apparatus that
can halt global warming with significant economic benefits. They
include (1), re-scrub half the carbon dioxide emitted from
calcining baking soda into soda ash to produce twice as much soda
ash and twice as much ammonium chloride as comparing with the
standard Solvay ammonia soda ash process; Use the ammonium chloride
as sugarcane fertilizer producing fuel ethanol, and bagasse, a
photosynthesized bio-fuel from carbon dioxide already presented in
the earth atmosphere for power generation, and (2), expand the
sugarcane plantation areas into desert oasis using desert heat to
produce distilled water for irrigation, pumped by solar heated
hydraulic press pumps to supplement insufficient rain forest
resources on earth's continents to accelerate reaching "carbon
neutral" on capture annually twenty five billion tons of
anthropogenic carbon dioxide from earth atmosphere
economically.
Inventors: |
Li; Hsiao-Yuan; (Richardson,
TX) |
|
Applicant: |
Name |
City |
State |
Country |
Type |
Li; Hsiao-Yuan |
Richardson |
TX |
US |
|
|
Assignee: |
GhG SaviorTech, Corp.
Richardson
TX
|
Family ID: |
47438773 |
Appl. No.: |
15/618031 |
Filed: |
June 8, 2017 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
13135534 |
Jul 8, 2011 |
9701543 |
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15618031 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
1/1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
C01D 7/18 20130101; F04B
17/006 20130101; C01D 7/123 20130101; F04B 19/24 20130101 |
International
Class: |
C01D 7/12 20060101
C01D007/12; F04B 17/00 20060101 F04B017/00; C01D 7/18 20060101
C01D007/18; F04B 19/24 20060101 F04B019/24 |
Claims
1. To further enlarge regions suitable for sugarcane plantation
beyond areas having heavy nature rainfall, to an extend large
enough to reach "carbon neutral" by capturing twenty five billion
tons of carbon dioxide annually from atmosphere, a distill water
producing apparatus as depicted in FIG. 3, to produce fresh water
from seawater to irrigate desert land into oasis suitable for
growing sugarcane. Said distilling apparatus is designed to take
advantage of greenhouse effect under desert-hot weather condition,
further comprising: A. A multitude of sealed off segments of
enclosures with outer, larger diameter steel tube 302 painted black
outside and inside, and an inner, smaller diameter stainless steel
tube 303 painted black outside, sealed off on the two ends by
segment partition plates 304 and 305 to prevent hot air from
escaping; B. A multitude of parabolic troughs with foci lines
coincide with said inner tub; C. A separation tank that separates
distilled water vapor from concentrated salt solution; D. A heat
exchange unit that condenses the water vapor with external
evaporation chilling. And E. A pump that pumps seawater through
said smaller diameter stainless steel tube 303.
2. A pump as recited in claim 2E, as depicted in FIG. 2, able to
use solar heating as a free source of energy to pump water from one
dry region to another dry region to enlarge areas where are short
of rainfall but after receiving the pumped water, become suitable
to grow sugarcane for fuel ethanol and cellulose bagasse bio-fuel,
further comprising: A. Two reservoirs 202a and 202b that house the
bi-component working medium consists of one-to-one mole ratio of
carbon dioxide dissolved into water, while heated by solar heating
via a heat exchange 203a associated with reservoir 202a, and a heat
exchange 203b associated with reservoir 202b, creates large
pressure increment that powers said pump via hydraulic pressure
difference; B. In association of reservoir 202a, a movable piston
202c, and in association of reservoir 202b, a movable piston 202d;
C. A rigid connecting rod 205 connects pistons 202b and 202d, on
rod 205, one marker pin 206a is mounted on the side of piston 202c,
away from the midpoint of rod 205 by the stroke distance that
piston 202b travels, another marker pin 206b is mounted on the side
of piston 202d by the stroke distance that piston 202d travels; D.
A location sensor 207 mounted at the midpoint of the frame 208 of
the hydraulic press 201; E. An onboard electronic controller with
storage battery pack and battery charging photovoltaic cell
modules. F. A plastic lens 204 pivoted through the lens' center of
gravity axis to save power consumption of moving the lens 204, as
the location sensor 207 made contact with the marker pin 206a or
206b, said electronic controller shall rotate the plastic lens 204
away from focusing over the current heat exchange, and focus upon
the heat exchange associated with the compressed reservoir; And G.
An on-board software able to locate the location of the sun as a
function of the date and time of the on board electronic watch, and
pointing the lens 204 accordingly.
Description
FIELD OF INVENTION
[0001] The present invention relates to methods of carbon dioxide
sequestration channeling into highly profitable products, and more
specifically, by using recycling half the carbon dioxide re-emitted
during the process of calcining baking soda into soda ash back into
the carbon dioxide scrubbing tower to produce twice as much soda
ash and ammonium chloride as comparing with the standard Solvay
ammonia soda ash process for the purpose of quicken the capture of
carbon dioxide supporting fast expansion of the industry before
ocean level arises.
[0002] This application claims the privilege on petitioning to Make
Special under the Green Technology Pilot Program currently
available under USPTO.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
[0003] Standard Solvay process of making soda ash was invented in
the 1860s. The chemical reactions involved in the Solvay process
are:
CO.sub.2+NH.sub.3+H.sub.2O+NaCl.fwdarw.NaHCO.sub.3+NH.sub.4Cl
Equation (a)
2NaHCO.sub.3.fwdarw.Na.sub.2CO.sub.3+H.sub.2O+CO.sub.2 Equation
(b)
At that time ammonia was obtained from coal tar distillate in very
small quantities, therefore the ammonium chloride in Equation (a)
was worthwhile to be recycled by using lime (calcium hydroxide)
from calcium oxide obtained from firing lime stone, and in the
1860s, anthropogenic carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere
is far from causing global warming. That was the commercial
background when Ernest Solvay built his first ammonia soda ash
plant in Europe.
[0004] In the decade of year 2000, the anthropogenic carbon dioxide
emission added annually to the atmosphere, as reported by the
Energy Information Administration--Carbon Dioxide Information and
Analysis Center, is 25 billion tons per year. It takes an area of
rain forest the size of Great Britain to photosynthesis 1 (one)
billion tons per year of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Since
the earth does not possesses enough rain forest resources to
remediate the global warming problem, it is therefore the intention
of the present invention to provide a plan to bootstrap the carbon
capture industry into a large scale, successful enterprise, with
significant profit for internal expansion, to halt the trend of
global warming.
[0005] UN COP 16 (16th Conference of Parties) held at Cancun,
Mexico agreed to provide financial incentives from economic advance
countries to encourage countries have rainforest area to keep these
areas from destroyed. This is a welcoming action that COP 16 has
taking. We hope other suggestions will be welcomed by future COP
Conferences may pass into resolutions that will slowdown or even
reverse global warming.
DESCRIPTION OF THE STATUS OF PRIOR ART ON CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURING
TECHNOLOGY
[0006] U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has conducted technically
successful carbon capture projects using amines as the capturing
agent. Compared with the Solvay process, both methods can capture
better than 98% of carbon dioxide emitted from flue gas. Being a
high cost integrant, amine must be recycled for reuse. The added
cost, measured in terms of COE (Cost of Electricity) increment, is
currently near 40%. DOE publishes roadmap to reduce COE increment
to 20%, and finally to 10% after certain years. For average
American households, this increase in COE brings a financial burden
that is difficult for them to accept. In addition, during the
recycling process of amine, the captured CO.sub.2 presented itself
as highly concentrated carbon dioxide liquid. Additional cost will
incur such as using the CO.sub.2 liquid to enhance oil production
on a depleted oil well clusters. The DOE branch ARPA-E has a
project office IMPACCT oversees more than a dozen projects, mostly
university researches, to address the COE reduction
technologies.
STATEMENT OF THE INVENTION
[0007] The carbon dioxide emission from fossil fuel fired power
plants can be used to produce soda ash and ammonium chloride via
Solvay process, two products that have commercial value. Here are
the approximate prices of these commodities: [0008] Electricity--13
cents per kWh; [0009] World soda ash price from Solvay process--20
cents per lb; [0010] US soda ash price from mining--15 cents per
lb; Revenue estimation from selling soda ash to the open market per
kWh of electricity: [0011] With standard Solvay process new plants
in the US--14 cents; [0012] With total conversion Solvay process
described in this invention--28 cents; The COE increments are both
negative by counting just selling only one product, the soda
ash.
[0013] In this invention, the CO.sub.2 produced in Equation (b) is
recycled back into the lower deck of the scrubber towel. Therefore,
all the CO.sub.2 from the flue gas end up as soda ash. This is one
major aspect of the improved Solvay process. Another major
advantage of the improved Solvay process is that it ALSO produces
twice as much NH.sub.4Cl, which can be used as fertilizer in heavy
rain fall regions to grow sugar cane, fermenting into ethanol used
as gasoline additives.
The amount of sugar estimated in terms of weight ratio of sugar
produced to NH.sub.4Cl fertilizer applied is in the range of
several hundreds. In addition, the bagasse from sugar cane
plantation is a usable bio-mass fuel for power generation, this
time the weight ratio of bagasse produced to NH.sub.4Cl fertilizer
applied is in the range of thousands. This is a very important
feature of our technology useful in halting global warming. Since
cane sugar and bagasse are both composed of base units of
C.sub.12H.sub.22O.sub.11. Each base unit, during photosynthesis
absorbs 12 molecules of CO.sub.2, measured in terms of amu (atomic
mass unit) count of 528 per each base unit's amu count of 342, we
can compute the total amount of carbon dioxide taken away from the
atmosphere via photosynthesis by multiplying the factor (528/342)
onto the amount of sucrose or bagasse produced, to obtain the
weight of carbon dioxide captured. Add them together to obtain the
total carbon dioxide captured from atmosphere.
[0014] In a special application case, the CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 mixture
from Equation (b) is not re-scrubbed but collected in a non-air
containing kiln able to be used as a dual-component working fluid
having no unique boiling point as a function of temperature. Using
concentrated solar heating as a free source of energy to
alternatively heat two CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 reservoirs under
electronic control, therefore raising the temperature and pressure
of the CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 mixture to power a hydraulic press used
for water pumping or bagasse shipping. Small modification of the
scrubbing system to collect pure form of CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 can
easily be done, namely the kiln to carry out Equation (b) can
selectively turn on a vacuum pump to remove air inside the kiln
while it is producing the dual component working fluid.
[0015] There exists certain important limitation that prevents us
from successfully bootstrap the carbon capture industry in large
scale: In a coal fired power plant, it normally burns 7 million
tons of coal annually. Each ton of coal on average generates 1750
kWh of electricity. Such a coal fired power plant emits 25.7
million tons of carbon dioxide annually. It uses up 9.9 million
tons of ammonia in a standard Solvay process each year, which is
approximately 12% of worldwide ammonia production capacity, with
purchase cost in billions of dollars. This reality forces us to
think small for a demonstration project. Namely to work first with
natural gas fired power plants since they emits only 1.31 lbs of
carbon dioxide per kWh of power generated, compared with 4.61 lbs.
CO.sub.2 emission for coal fired power plant.
[0016] Assuming we identified a natural gas fired power plant that
emits annually enough carbon dioxide to produce one million tons of
soda ash by conventional Solvay process. Such a plant needs to
purchase 321 thousand tons of ammonia, or 0.39% of the world's
total ammonia capacity of around 82 million tons. This plant also
produces 1,009,434 tons of NH.sub.4Cl annually useable as
fertilizer for sugarcane plantation at heavy rain fall regions
where chlorine ions are washed away without damaging the soil.
Assume further the weight ratio of sugar to fertilizer be 100, as
in our previous discussion, we can expect to harvest 32.1 million
tons annually of sucrose. Each molecule of sucrose can be fermented
into 6 fuel ethanol molecules. Assuming further the fermentation
process has only a 70% yield factor, from 32.1 million tons of
sucrose, 18.13 million tons of fuel ethanol can be produced.
According to a report issued by International Sugar Organization
published in 1Q 2011, after the summer of 2009, USA passed Brazil
as the largest producer of Fuel Ethanol. In 2010, the United States
produces 45 billion liters of fuel ethanol, Brazil, 30 billion
liters, followed by EU at 10 billion liters as the number 3
producer. The current price for Brazil fuel ethanol is $90/bbl,
compared with $72/bbl for US fuel ethanol. With this price, the
18.13 million tons of fuel ethanol produced by said demonstration
project is worth approximately $25.1 billions. From our previous
weight ratio of bagasse to fertilizer calculation, ten times of the
weight of sucrose, or 321 million tons of bagasse is
photosynthesized from CO.sub.2 already in the atmosphere, now a
useful biomass fuel for power generation without adding additional
CO.sub.2 into the atmosphere. The total CO.sub.2 captured by
bagasse is therefore estimated in the amount of 1,558,424,363 tons
annually, within the error of estimation.
[0017] Remember we only need to absorb 25 billion tons of carbon
dioxide already in the atmosphere to reach carbon neutral.
25,000,000,000/1,558,424,363=16. Only 16 such projects are needed
to halt global warming, and consuming only 6.27% of world ammonia
capacity, affordably purchased using fuel ethanol income. With
improved total reflexive conversion of carbon dioxide into soda ash
and ammonium chloride, only 8 project sites are needed to halt
global warming, consuming the same amount of ammonia. This goal is
certainly reachable before climate change becoming a disaster.
Together it creates huge profit and large number of employment
opportunities.
[0018] Now let us address the problem of finding an area the size
of 25 Britain to install these sugar plantations. First of all,
country such as Brazil, already during the last two decades,
produced enough ethanol to support their E85 gasoline needs.
Countries such as Vietnam, southern provinces of China, have
continuous bidding advertisements to purchase ammonium chloride
fertilizer. Cambodia, Haiti, Dominica Republic, Cuba, Mozambique,
Congo, East Timor, Indonesia etc. are either doing small quantity
sugar-ethanol production, or there exist economic incentive for
them to do so in the near future. This may count as half of the 25
regions needed to absorb the carbon dioxide already in the
atmosphere. The other half of the regions needs to be developed in
coastal, hot weather regions such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, North
Africa Countries over part of the Sahara desert, South West Africa,
the Australia continent, India, Pakistan, etc. where peak sun ray
can easily boiling seawater into distilled water, or high humidity
water moisture, after condensing into distilled water, can be
pumped by the hydraulic pump previously described to sugar
plantation, an oasis in the desert. The salt crystal separated from
seawater is usable in Solvay process.
[0019] Here for the process of making distilled water, this
invention calls for a useful green-house-effect tube heater device
consists of two concentric tubes made of steel for the outer tube,
painted black, of stainless tube to minimize corrosion, also
painted blank. The large diameter outside tube creates a green
house enclosure containing very hot air. To prevent the hot air
from escape, the tubes are sealed off by sections. The hot air
heats a much smaller diameter inner tube with water flowing inside,
pumped by the hydraulic press described previously. Furthermore,
the temperature of the inner tube can be increased from the
blackbody radiation temperature of the outer enclosure by
installing aluminum trough reflective elements with focal line
coincides with the inner tube.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING
[0020] FIG. 1 shows the flow-diagram of total carbon dioxide
capture scrubbing system.
[0021] FIG. 2 shows the structure of solar powered hydraulic
pump;
[0022] FIG. 3 shows the distilled-water producing tube heater
device.
[0023] FIG. 4 shows the prior art kiln arrangement that carries out
the reaction of Equation (b);
[0024] In the prior art practice as shown in FIG. 4, Equation (b)
is carried out in a kiln 401 slightly tilted with an angle from
upper, inlet end 402 toward lower, outlet end 403. It is well known
from skilled operators in the art, if freshly centrifuged baking
soda is fed into the inlet of the kiln, Equation (b) will be
carried out in a very unsatisfactory manner that the newly formed
soda ash at above 350 degree Centigrade will form a cake with wet
baking soda in mixture of small percentage of soda ash, rendering
the reaction of Equation (b) incomplete thus the product is not
sellable.
[0025] To remediate this problem, small percentage of freshly
centrifuged baking soda is mixed with large percentage of soda ash
powder previously obtained from outlet 403, charged into inlet 402,
then a sellable product of soda ash powders are thus obtained.
BEST EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
[0026] In FIG. 1, the upper exhaust 101 of the calcining kiln
containing one-half of the carbon dioxide captured by the
conventional Solvay process is pumped into the bottom inlet 102 of
the scrubbing tower 103, The baking soda, after separated from the
centrifuge, is converted into soda ash as usual according to the
prior art descriptions of FIG. 4.
[0027] For the purpose of collecting pure form of CO.sub.2+H.sub.20
usable as bi-component working medium to power a hydraulic press
unit used either as a pump or as a shipping vessel, the baking soda
to soda ash conversion kiln 104 is equipped with a vacuum pump to
remove air in the kiln 104 and the CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 mixture so
produced can be collected through a three way valve 105 whose
outlet 105a is connected to the bottom inlet 102 of the scrubbing
tower, and the other outlet 105b is connected to a
CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 storage tank 106 for future use as the working
medium of said hydraulic press.
[0028] In FIG. 2, the hydraulic press 201 is consisting of two
CO.sub.2+H.sub.20 reservoirs 202a associated with moveable piston
202c, and reservoir 202b associated with moveable piston 202d, each
reservoir is equipped with its own heat exchange unit 203a or 203b,
obtaining its heat alternatively from the sunray condensing lens
204 pivoted through the lens' center of gravity axis to save power
consumption of moving the lens 204. As the pressure at reservoir
202a increases, a rigid connecting rod 205 connecting pistons 202c
and 202d pushes the lower pressure reservoir 202b into contraction.
The connection rod 205 has two marker pins 206a and 206b mounted
each at a fixed distance from the midpoint of the connection rod. A
location sensor 207 at the midpoint location relative to the frame
208 of the hydraulic press 201 detected either the marker pin 206a
or the marker pin 206b has made a contact with the location sensor
207, the electronics on board of hydraulic press 201 rotates the
condensing plastic lens 204 from the heat exchange being heated to
the heat exchange that was not heated. The process will go on
continuously as long as the sunray is able to move the marker pin
206a or 206b passing through location sensor 207. The movement
stops when the cloud covers the hydraulic press 201 until the cloud
escapes, than the movement resumes. The hydraulic press 201 is
equipped with enough photovoltaic solar panels 208 and storage
battery 209 to support on board electronics, which also can locate
the location of the sun as a function of the date and time of the
on board electronic watch, and pointing the lens 204
accordingly.
[0029] In FIG. 3, 301A shows the side view of a section of the
distilled-water producing tube heater device. 301B shows the
cross-sectional view of the distilled-water producing tube heater
device. And 301C shows the overall layout of the water
distiller.
[0030] In both 301A and 301B, 302 is the outer, large diameter
steel tube, and 303 is the inner, smaller diameter stainless steel
tube. Between the outer tube and the inner tube, segment partition
plates 304 and 305 are welded solid-tie to form a closed enclosure
avoiding the escaping leakage of hot air. In order to heat the
inner tube to a temperature higher than the equilibrium temperature
of a blackbody radiation enclosure, a multitude of reflective
troughs 306 whole foci line are coincide with the inner tube,
focusing the infrared radiation onto the inner tube.
[0031] The inner tubes from the segments are connected together in
sequence to allow seawater passing through. After certain distance,
the seawater inside the inner tube is feed into a separation tank
wherein the steam and highly concentrated salt solution are
separated, avoiding salt crystallizing inside the inner tube. The
separated vapor is allowed to condense into distilled water inside
a heat exchange using external evaporation cooling.
* * * * *