Abstract:
The invention relates to a device for efficiently disposing of human waste material without the use of power or expendables other than waste heat and flow resulting from the normal operation of an internal combustion engine. Human waste is inserted into an incineration chamber located in the engine exhaust system, is incinerated by the engine exhaust heat, and the resultant ash is expelled from the system by the flow of engine exhaust gasses. The device may be utilized for the disposal of human waste generated by personnel on board various motor vehicles, i.e. various combat vehicles (armored personnel carriers, tanks, command post vehicles, etc.), and is easily adaptable for marine (i.e. various types of boats) or various other applications.
Abstract:
A urine-water recovery system is described which provides efficient potable water recovery from waste liquids. The design allows use over extended durations such as encountered in space flights. The system has advantages such as low power consumption, compactness, and gravity insensitive operation. The system comprises a vacuum distillation system combining a hollow fiber polysulfone membrane evaporator with a thermoelectric heat pump and condenser. With the system of the present invention, water purified from urine can be produced at a rate of more than 0.5 kg/hr at a total system energy of less than 400 w-hr/kg.
Abstract:
This disclosure relates to a self-contained recirculating toilet system which includes a toilet bowl having a built-in flush pump and a waste-discharge macerator pump with the discharge of the macerator pump being connected to a holding tank unit for delivering raw waste into a raw-waste compartment thereof. The raw waste is periodically pumped from the raw-waste compartment to a combined sterilization and flocculation cell unit after which the treated liquid is returned to the holding-tank unit and after solids float over weir by virtue of gaseous suspension from the treatment in the cells and aided by the outward flow through a discharge slit the remaining clarified and sterilized liquid is directed into a flush-water compartment of the holding-tank unit for use in the next flushing of the toilet. The system provides for repeated use of the same water for multiple toilet flushing.
Abstract:
A waste disposal system and method which incinerates solid human excrement evacuated into a toilet bowl employing a reusable chemical flushing liquid. The liquid discharges into an individual holding tank and thereafter is reusable for additional flushes until the solid excrement in the individual holding tank reaches approximately a predetermined level which usually is determined by the number of flushes. Then the collected human waste is discharged into a main collection holding tank where the solid excrement along with some of the chemical liquid rises until a predetermined level is reached. Subsequently, and upon the simultaneous occurrence of several triggering conditions, the solid excrement and liquid present in the main collection holding tank are run through a comminutor which returns such mixture to the main tank from which it is again passed to the comminutor and back to the tank in a closed cycle, a sufficient period of time being allotted to reduce such solid excrement and the chemical liquid to a gelatinous consistency. When this consistency is reached, the same being determined by the passage of a given period of time, and if the same triggering conditions still prevail, the comminuted mixture from the closed cycle is bled off into the exhaust of the engine used to power the conveyance, the comminution being continued during such discharge.
Abstract:
A recirculating sewerage system including at least one water closet, a recirculating tank including effluent receiving and pumping chambers separated by a common wall, the common wall supporting a filter for restricting the passage of bulk waste including paper products which float on the top of the received effluent from the effluent receiving chamber to the pumping chamber, a pump including a filtering element for drawing liquid effluent from the pumping chamber and for directing the drawn and filtered liquid effluent to the water closet to flush same, the means for creating turbulence proximate the upper surface of the effluent within the effluent receiving chamber adjacent the filter when the pump is actuated whereby the flow of the floating paper products from the effluent receiving chamber to the pumping chamber during actuation of the pump will be inhibited.
Abstract:
Method and apparatus are described for heating flushed domestic sewage to a liquifying digestion temperature under aeration conditions, withdrawing digestion liquid through a filtering mass of biologically active sewage solids in the digestion zone to form a biologically pure flushing liquid for the sewage in required volume, and removing excess withdrawn digestion liquid to eliminate it from the system.
Abstract:
A waste treatment system including means for grinding solid wastes, mixing them with liquid to form a pumpable slurry and pumping the slurry to a waste treatment tank. The waste treatment tank includes a screening section in which an enclosed screen unit is loosely received. The slurry is pumped to the interior of the screen unit for flow outwardly through the foraminous side walls thereof and thence, into a mixing section of the treatment tank. The screened waste material is mixed with chemical additives as it passes from the screening section of the treatment tank to the mixing section and a series of perforated baffles in the mixing section insure that the additives and screened waste material are intimately mixed and retained in the tank for a sufficient period of time to render the mixture pathogenically harmless before it is ejected from an outlet from the mixing section of the treatment tank.
Abstract:
A combined toilet and sewage treatment apparatus comprising a bowl provided with a drainage aperture; a primary treatment chamber providing a first electrolyte reservoir, a secondary treatment chamber providing a second electrolyte reservoir; means for circulating electrolyte between said second reservoir and said bowl to flush said bowl, the electrolyte during circulation passing from said bowl through said drainage aperture to said first reservoir and from said first reservoir to said second reservoir when its level in said first reservoir reaches a predetermined level; and a pair of electrodes positioned in each of said first and second reservoirs so that when current is supplied to said electrodes, electrolysis of sewage in the electrolyte in both said reservoirs occurs.
Abstract:
Process for the substantial reductio of bacterial count in sewage waste and assembly for treating same. The assembly comprises means for conveying sewage waste material to a treatment zone, means for retaining the waste material therein, temperature control means to insure that the contents retained in the treatment zone attain a temperatures at least that of boiling water and means for passing the treated sewage wastes from the treatment zone so that upon discharge of the treated waste material, substantially all of the bacteria have been destroyed.
Abstract:
A method and apparatus for removing a first component from a fluid stream comprises contacting the fluid stream with a continuously moving bed of filter material, contained within a separation column, recovering the contaminated filter material, and regenerating it for reuse. The continuously moving bed of filter material is moved through a contact zone in the separation column by creating a hydraulic force on the material from the flow of a carrier liquid through the material. The fluid stream can be an oil-water mixture from which oil is removed by an absorbent filter material.