EP0159862A2 - Granulation - Google Patents

Granulation Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0159862A2
EP0159862A2 EP85302542A EP85302542A EP0159862A2 EP 0159862 A2 EP0159862 A2 EP 0159862A2 EP 85302542 A EP85302542 A EP 85302542A EP 85302542 A EP85302542 A EP 85302542A EP 0159862 A2 EP0159862 A2 EP 0159862A2
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
blade
granulator
shear
rotor
copper
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP85302542A
Other languages
German (de)
English (en)
French (fr)
Inventor
Peter Harvey
Marian Karol Nieora
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Balfour Beatty PLC
Original Assignee
BICC PLC
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by BICC PLC filed Critical BICC PLC
Publication of EP0159862A2 publication Critical patent/EP0159862A2/en
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
    • B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
    • B02C23/00—Auxiliary methods or auxiliary devices or accessories specially adapted for crushing or disintegrating not provided for in preceding groups or not specially adapted to apparatus covered by a single preceding group
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
    • B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
    • B02C18/00—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments
    • B02C18/06—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives
    • B02C18/14—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives within horizontal containers
    • B02C18/145—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives within horizontal containers with knives spaced axially and circumferentially on the periphery of a cylindrical rotor unit
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
    • B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
    • B02C18/00—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments
    • B02C18/06—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives
    • B02C18/14—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives within horizontal containers
    • B02C18/148—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives within horizontal containers specially adapted for disintegrating plastics, e.g. cinematographic films
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B02—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING; PREPARATORY TREATMENT OF GRAIN FOR MILLING
    • B02C—CRUSHING, PULVERISING, OR DISINTEGRATING IN GENERAL; MILLING GRAIN
    • B02C18/00—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments
    • B02C18/06—Disintegrating by knives or other cutting or tearing members which chop material into fragments with rotating knives
    • B02C18/16—Details
    • B02C18/18—Knives; Mountings thereof
    • B02C18/186—Axially elongated knives

Definitions

  • This invention relates to the granulation of copper cathodes and of other metals received in sheet form.
  • the most efficient known process at least for copper cathodes (our British Patent No. 2021974B) comprises comminuting the metal sheets by means of a granulator of the kind comprising a rotor with at least one blade co-operating with at least one fixed blade to comminute the material repeatedly until the particles are small enough to pass through a screen bounding the working zone.
  • prime cutting takes pieces (usually narrow strip) from the leading edge of the sheet material and digestion makes random cuts through those pieces repeatedly until the resulting granules escape through the screen.
  • a process of granulating metal received in a sheet form comprises a'first, prime cutting, operation in which the sheet metal is advanced and pieces are taken from its leading edge by a shear comprising a otor with at least one blade co-operating with a fixed blade across which the sheet metal is fed and a second, digestion, operation in which the pieces formed in the first operation are fed to at least one granulator of the kind comprising a rotor with at least one blade co-operating with at least one fixed blade to comminute the material repeatedly until the particles are small enough to pass through a screen bounding the working zone.
  • the energy efficiency of the process may be significantly improved.
  • granules produced, from copper cathode at least, by the method of the invention have a substantially higher bulk density than those produced using a single sheet-fed granulator; it is assumed, but has not been confirmed, that this is associated with a higher proportion of relatively isotropic particles.
  • the increased bulk density leads to additional energy saving when the granules are subsequently used as infeed to an extrusion process.
  • the size of the rotating shear may vary within the limits imposed by the si.ze of the sheet to be granulated and the strength of its components, but it can be expected that the diameter of the rotor will almost always lie in the range from 0.25 to 0.5m; for shears within this range, at least, we very much prefer a blade arrangement that produces only one cut per rotation at any particular point along the length of the shear (i.e. along the width of the sheet).
  • a rotor made up of a plurality of plates stacked on each other in the axial dirction, at least one of the plates having in its circumference at least one pocket for a blade which pocket extends through the whole thickness of that plate, a blade being mounted in that pocket by a single screw and having its ends substantially coplanar with the major faces of that plate; and contiguous plates which bear on the major faces of that plate also bearing on the ends of the blade to confer additional rigidity on its mounting.
  • the contiguous plates may be fitted with blades at other points'around the circumference of the rotor, or (provided the metal to be sheared is britle enough) they may be spacer plates not fitted with blades.
  • the plates are preferably solid and substantially circular apart from the blade pocket.
  • a similar rotor design may be used in the granulator also, but in that case it may be preferably for the circumference of each plate to be recessed as an aid to balancing and/or to provision of additional working volume between rotor and housing.
  • the cutting blades may be desirable to cool the cutting blades to reduce the rate at which their cutting edges become blunted; since contact with the copper or other metal being comminuted in the prime cutting operation will be short, the risk of the metal being overheated is relatively small, but may not always be negligible.
  • the amount is desirably such that the heat generated in the granulation process, plus any inflow of the ambient heat, is sufficient to evaporate (or sublime) substantially all of the volatile substance; and in the case of copper granulation it should also be such that evaporation (or sublimation) of the volatile substance is sufficient to keep the temperature of any substantial part of the copper from rising above 80°C (and preferably 70°C) for any significant length of time.
  • De-ionised or otherwise purified water may be fed to the granulator as a liquid (or frozen) film on the surface of the copper, for example by feeding pickled cathodes still wet with rinsing water and/or by flowing a stream of water onto the copper close to the point where the initial cut is made; alternatively, or if a greater quantity of volatile substance is needed, water (or one of the alternatives discussed), may be injected separately into the granulator and/or into the air stream entering it, preferably as a fine spray.
  • the plant on Figure 1 produces copper granules for use, after appropriate heat treatment, as infeed for a continuous friction-actuated extrusion (Conform) process for the manufacture of copper wire.
  • Conform continuous friction-actuated extrusion
  • the infeed to the plant of Figure 1 itself consists of copper cathodes, typically with an area of one metre square and thicknesses up to about 20 or 22 mm (14-day cathodes, that is cathodes of the thickness accumulated in 14 days continuous deposition under conventional copper-refining current-density and other conditions).
  • 14-day cathodes that is cathodes of the thickness accumulated in 14 days continuous deposition under conventional copper-refining current-density and other conditions.
  • the cathodes are placed in a stack 1 on a support 2.
  • individual cathodes are taken, from the stack by a lifting mechanism 3 and transferred (transversely to the plane of the figure) onto a feed table 50.
  • a ram 4 now advances and pushes the cathode under spring-loaded or otherwise biassed gripping devices (which resist tilting or pulling-in of the cathodes) and through a simple slot into a rotary shear 5 which performs the prime cutting operation.
  • the shear has a single continuous fixed blade which the cathode rests on at the entry slot and a single blade divided into short segments distributed round the rotor; this produces prime-cut pieces predominantly with lengths roughly equal to the length of the blade segments, widths (or thicknesses) equal to the thickness of the cathode (a dimension that varies considerably, both from cathode to cathode and between different parts of the same cathode) and thicknesses (or widths, if the cathode is thin) equal to the distance the cathode advances per revolution of the shear rotor (this dimension is also likely to vary significantly, particularly at the beginning and end of the cathode).
  • the ram 4 retracts and the feed cycle repeats, the shear 5 idling until the ram again advances far enough to push copper in to it.
  • the prime cut pieces formed in the shear 5 immediately fall into a hopper 6 which discharges them to a bucket conveyor 7 (shown diagrammatically) which delivers them to at least one granulator 8, which may be of wholly conventional design - a Cumberland Model 37 granulator with its standard hopper feed is satisfactory.
  • the granulator 8 is cooled by blowing through it lm 3 ./s of air into which deionised water may be injected in a fine spray at a rate of 1 litre for each 30kg of copper. This is sufficient to keep the average granule temperature down to about 40°C and substantially every granule below 70°C, substantially avoiding tarnishing, whilst on the other hand the heat generated is sufficient to evaporate all the water leaving the granules dry.
  • the granule discharges conventionally via hopper 9, a second bucket conveyor 10, sieving apparatus 51 (which separates oversize granules for recycling to the granulator and fines for disposal) and magnetic separation apparatus 11 to a receiver 12.
  • shear 5 is made by modifying a Cumberland Model 43 granulator so as to have only one fixed blade (located directly below the entry slot for the copper cathodes) and one revolving blade distributed in short segments around the rotor. Two suitable rotor designs are illustrated.
  • the relatively conventional rotor of figures 2-6 is of monolithic construction and is best visualised as a cylinder with major parts of its surface machined away to form ten segments 13-22 which are identical shape but each have a unique orientation. As best seen in Figure 5 the segments are bounded by five major plane faces 23-27, a portion 28 of the circumscribing cylindrical surface, and minor flat surfaces 30 and 31 which are at right angles to each other and form a pocket into whch a blade segment 32 is fixed with a pair of screws 33. Faces 23-27 form five of the six side faces of symmetrical (but non-regular) hexagonal prism having two angles of 72° (at 34 and 35) and four of 54°.
  • Segments 13 and 14 are relatively displaced by 180° and thus together form a hexagonal prism with two projections 36, 37 forming abutments for their respective blade segments 32, 38.
  • Rotor segments 15 and 16 form a similar pair displaced 72° with respect to the first pair and so on for the other three pairs 17 and 18 (displaced 144° with respect to the first pair), 19 and 20 (216°) and 21 and 22 (288°).
  • a cut is made at some point along the length of the rotor for every,36° of rotation (one tenth of a turn) but spacially adjacent cuts are always well separated in time.
  • Figure 4 is marked only with the numbers of the segments so as to bring out clearly the order in which the blades cut.
  • Figure 7 shows an alternative design in which the rotor is made up of a number of plates stacked together in an axial direction. Only three of the plates are shown, one in solid lines and the adjacent ones in broken lines. Apart from the end plates; which may be plain circular discs, all the plates are identical in shape but all differ in orientaton.
  • the plate 38 shown in solid lines is basically circular but is eccentrically mounted with its centre at 39 whereas the rotation axis of the rotor is at 40.
  • a recess for the blade 41 is formed with its abutment face 42 at the positon of maximum radius and shaped to provide working clearance in front of the blade; the axial length of each blade segment is substantially the same as the thickness of the plate.
  • the depth x of the blade is so related to the eccentricity of the plates that adjacent plates 43, 44 (centred at 45 and 46 respectively) bear on respective ends of the blade segment 41, thus enabling it to be rigidly mounted with only one screw 47. This permits use of blade segments about half as long as the minimum required for the design of Figures 2-6.
  • Figure 7 also shows the fixed blade 48 of the shear and a copper cathode or other sheet 49 about to be advanced into a cutting position.
  • a granulator constructed as qescribed and illustrated by way of example in our European Patent Application Publication No. 94258 (a Cumberland Model 37 granulator with a modified feed arrangement to accept sheet input) was used conventionally to granulate copper half-cathodes nominally 500 mm wide by lm long and varying in thickness in the range 5-12 mm. Two fixed blades and three rotating blades, each divided into five 180 mm long staggered segments, were fitted. The nominal rotor speed was 600 revolutions per minute. The half-cathodes were fed, short end leading, at a speed of 100 mm/s for a period of one second at intervals of 20 seconds.
  • Nominal 3 mm granules were produced using a 6.5 mm screen at a rate of about 500 kg/hr.
  • the mean actual energy consumption was about 66 kWh/tonne and the average temperature of the emerging granules, when operating without any cooling, was at 175°C. It is thought that a considerable part of the heat is generated in pieces of copper that are caught (one or more times) between a rotating blade and the leading edge of the copper cathode which overlies the fixed blade that makes the prime.cuts and so makes that blade more of less ineffective in the subsequent granulation.
  • the bulk density of the granules was found to vary in the range 3.3 - 3.6 tonne/m 3 .
  • the granulator was now modified for operating the process of the present invention by removing the screen (thereby converting it to a shear) and fitting substantially only one blade to the rotor; this blade was divided into fifteen 65 mm-long segments staggered round the whole circumference of the rotor (overlapping axially by about 2 mm).
  • the half-cathodes were now fed at a speed of 35 mm/sec, continuously except as necessary to introduce new half-cathodes.
  • This prime cutting operation produced pieces averaging 65 mm long by 5 - 12 mm wide by 3 mm thick at a throughput rate of about 800 kg/hr for an average energy consumption of about 20 kwh/tonne with only a modest temperature rise.
  • both fixed blades function with comparable efficiency; and because the feed position is at the top of the rotor the risk of large pieces of copper becoming trapped in the clearance between the screen and the rotor is significantly reduced.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Food Science & Technology (AREA)
  • Crushing And Pulverization Processes (AREA)
  • Manufacture And Refinement Of Metals (AREA)
  • Powder Metallurgy (AREA)
  • Manufacture Of Metal Powder And Suspensions Thereof (AREA)
  • Processing And Handling Of Plastics And Other Materials For Molding In General (AREA)
  • Disintegrating Or Milling (AREA)
EP85302542A 1984-04-12 1985-04-11 Granulation Withdrawn EP0159862A2 (en)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB8409574 1984-04-12
GB848409574A GB8409574D0 (en) 1984-04-12 1984-04-12 Granulation

Publications (1)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0159862A2 true EP0159862A2 (en) 1985-10-30

Family

ID=10559595

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP85302542A Withdrawn EP0159862A2 (en) 1984-04-12 1985-04-11 Granulation

Country Status (14)

Country Link
EP (1) EP0159862A2 (pt)
JP (1) JPS60241943A (pt)
KR (1) KR850007220A (pt)
AU (1) AU4094385A (pt)
BR (1) BR8501748A (pt)
DK (1) DK165985A (pt)
ES (1) ES8605407A1 (pt)
FI (1) FI851461L (pt)
GB (2) GB8409574D0 (pt)
IL (1) IL74982A0 (pt)
NO (1) NO851451L (pt)
PT (1) PT80263B (pt)
ZA (1) ZA852457B (pt)
ZW (1) ZW6685A1 (pt)

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO1993025311A1 (en) * 1992-06-18 1993-12-23 Masma Ab A machine for producing filling material from sheet-like products
LU91518B1 (en) * 2009-01-21 2010-01-21 Wurth Paul Sa Hydrometallurgical production of metal
CN103240419A (zh) * 2013-05-09 2013-08-14 宜兴市劲立机械有限公司 一种软金属颗粒冷轧机
EP3954462A1 (de) * 2020-07-28 2022-02-16 Vecoplan AG Zerkleinerungsvorrichtung mit kühleinrichtung sowie verfahren zu deren betrieb

Families Citing this family (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
CN102328090B (zh) * 2011-09-13 2012-12-26 余华乔 铅锭冷制粒全自动生产设备

Cited By (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
WO1993025311A1 (en) * 1992-06-18 1993-12-23 Masma Ab A machine for producing filling material from sheet-like products
LU91518B1 (en) * 2009-01-21 2010-01-21 Wurth Paul Sa Hydrometallurgical production of metal
CN103240419A (zh) * 2013-05-09 2013-08-14 宜兴市劲立机械有限公司 一种软金属颗粒冷轧机
CN103240419B (zh) * 2013-05-09 2016-02-24 钱和革 一种软金属颗粒冷轧机
EP3954462A1 (de) * 2020-07-28 2022-02-16 Vecoplan AG Zerkleinerungsvorrichtung mit kühleinrichtung sowie verfahren zu deren betrieb

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
GB8509278D0 (en) 1985-05-15
KR850007220A (ko) 1985-12-02
FI851461L (fi) 1985-10-13
DK165985D0 (da) 1985-04-12
IL74982A0 (en) 1985-08-30
JPS60241943A (ja) 1985-11-30
PT80263A (en) 1985-05-01
DK165985A (da) 1985-10-13
ZW6685A1 (en) 1985-06-26
GB8409574D0 (en) 1984-05-23
ES8605407A1 (es) 1986-03-16
AU4094385A (en) 1985-10-17
BR8501748A (pt) 1985-12-10
NO851451L (no) 1985-10-14
ZA852457B (en) 1986-01-29
PT80263B (en) 1986-10-28
ES542153A0 (es) 1986-03-16
GB2158736A (en) 1985-11-20
FI851461A0 (fi) 1985-04-11

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PUAI Public reference made under article 153(3) epc to a published international application that has entered the european phase

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Withdrawal date: 19860926

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Effective date: 19860926

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Inventor name: NIEORA, MARIAN KAROL

Inventor name: HARVEY, PETER