Interra Reciprocating Reactor
Designed to overcome all the challenges associated with traditional (and the so-called “advanced” contemporaries) thermal biomass processing technologies, the Interra Reciprocating Reactor will be unmatched in biochar and electricity production.
Design Principles
When designing the Interra Reciprocating Reactor we employed the following design principles:
- Optimize for the highest value product in terms of ecological and financial value – biochar.
- Whenever possible, borrow tech solutions from existing, robust technologies in other industries. Why reinvent the wheel when you can instead just start piecing together the wagon.
- Design for flexibility from the beginning – feedstocks, temperature, pressure, throughput rate, etc.
- Start from the chemistry, the mechanics will follow.
These design principles resulted in a truly unique system that contains game-changing innovations. How and why the system will work so much better than existing technologies is, like any great bit of clean tech, astounding in its simplicity and exceptionally practical in its execution.
Our technology serves as the core of Interra Energy, Inc. This patent-pending system represents a new platform technology, leaps and bounds more advanced than existing technologies in “waste” biomass utilization.
Current Construction
Interra has assembled the rack units which will serve as the support structure for the reactor. The next phase is to finish the welding and assembly for the intake unit. You can see some of the progress in the images below.
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Support Structure
Support Structure
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Knife Gate and Intake
Knife Gate and Intake
Innovations & Technology Benefits
| Relatively low-temperature, high-pressure slow pyrolysis. | Highest possible yield of biochar. Greater energy density of gas. | Highest total value of output products per ton of input. |
| Thermally self-sustaining reactor, after start up. | No combustion or heat input required after start up. Allows for electricity generation rather than using gas to heat biomass. No air emissions source from traditional heating methods. | Lower operational and capital cost. Removes a regulatory hurdle associated with traditional burners. |
| Methane rich gas created instead of syngas, producer gas, wood gas, etc. | Most energy dense gas possible from thermal biomass conversion. Gas can go directly into traditional power generation equipment without modification. | Lower operating and capital costs. |
| High continuous-feed throughput. | Constant generation of electricity. More efficient. Avoids waste associated with batch systems. Scale-able. | Higher throughput means more biochar/electricity produced per capital dollar spent. Also, lower operational cost per output. |
| Gas cleaning within system. | Don’t need extra gas scrubbing/cleaning equipment. No tar to deal with. | Lower capital costs. Less operational cost from gas cleaning equipment maintenance. |
| Almost entirely made of off-the-shelf parts. Only a few easily machinable custom pieces fashioned from off-the-shelf parts. | Easier to replace parts. Inexpensive to keep higher spare part inventory levels, which translates into better system uptime. | Lower capital costs. Quicker manufacturing/assembly of system. |
| Excess heat transfer system used to dry incoming biomass. | No need for outside heat to dry biomass. Quicker carbonization of biomass due to dryness upon entering system. | Lower operational costs. |
| Adjustable throughput and reactor pressure. | Control of operating conditions. | Product diversification (biochar & gas with properties geared towards different end uses). |