Appeal No. 1999-1738 Page 3
Application No. 08/854,516
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to the
appellant's specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the respective
positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. For the reasons which follow, we
cannot sustain any of the examiner's rejections.
Each of Houston, Gross and Klobucar discloses a regenerative thermal oxidizer or
incinerator comprising a combustion chamber and at least two, but preferably three, heat
exchangers (or regenerators) in communication with the combustion chamber, each of the heat
exchangers having a flow valve or separate inlet and outlet flow valves for selectively
communicating the regenerator with either a source of impure air to be cleaned or a clean air
discharge stack or a source of purge air (which may be either recycled air from the clean air
discharge or a separate source of clean air). The valves are controlled such that, at any given
time, one of the heat exchangers acts as an inlet heat exchanger for delivering impure air to the
combustion chamber, a second heat exchanger acts as an outlet heat exchanger for delivering
cleaned air from the combustion chamber to the discharge stack and the purge air passes
through the third heat exchanger into the combustion chamber and out through the outlet heat
exchanger. At predetermined intervals, the positions of the valves are altered such that the
roles of the heat exchangers are sequentially interchanged.
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