RE:RE:Agm ...Last year It makes absolutely no sense that they would say there are "no inventive claims"
The closest patent by design is US5104096A as it is also for an electric arc furnace for producing silicon metal. However this patent is for an OPEN furnace where gases are expected to be sucked out via a hollow electrode. It also references another patent that SPECIFICALLY states sealing off the furnace isn't advised:
"U.S. Pat. No. 4,450,003 teaches that integrally sealing an electric arc furnace to collect combustible gases in the production of ferrosilicon gives rise to severe constraints in regard to all operations .... It concludes that sealing off an existing arc furnace for ferrosilicon production or building a new one
sealed off is often impractical"
The entire concept behind the PYR patent is to have an electric arc furnace in VACUUM:
"[00013] The embodiments described herein provide in one aspect a system for reducing silica to silicon, which uses a combination of a
plasma arc and vacuum, to produce high purity silicon from silica containing materials, such as quartz or quartzite.
[00014] Specifically, a vacuum electric arc furnace is provided, such that the plasma arc produces a silicon melt from the silica containing materials.
[00028] The vacuum electric arc silica reduction functions in a similar way to an electric arc furnace, but using vacuum conditions (< 100 kPa, and more typically < 1000 Pa) enables to volatilize impurities at lower temperatures and more effectively than they volatilize at atmospheric pressure. This makes it possible to volatilize these impurities at achievable moderate temperatures (1400-2000 °C) and high rate in the furnace with reduced contamination from the crucible. Moreover, those impurities, which are not volatile at ambient pressure such as Mn, Ag, Ga, Sn, Cu, Al, and Fe, become volatile at vacuum conditions"
Since there are no other patents for creating high purity quartz in a vacuum electric arc furnace I would consider that "inventive".
S5104096A