GB461457A - Improvements in or relating to apparatus for separating solids from liquids - Google Patents

Abstract

461,457. Gravity-separation apparatus. SMITH, F. A., and STERN, D. C. Jan. 21, 1936, No. 1948. [Class 46] [Also in Group XXX] A bucket elevator which discharges sand or other solid matter from a settling- tank passes round a pulley 19, which guides the buckets 22 near the bottom of the tank, and around a much smaller upper pulley 21 by means of which liquid collecting above the solid matter in each bucket is thrown centrifugally into a shoot 24 and thus separated from the solid matter which falls into a shoot 25 as the bucket is overturned. The axis of the pulley 19 is preferably above the surface of the liquid in the tank. As shown, the settling tank 10 Figs. 1, 4 and 5, has inner longitudinal walls 12 connected by a curved end portion 13. Inclined plates 15, to which baffles 18 may be attached, are fitted in the spaces between the walls 12 and the outer walls of the tank. A mixture of water and sand delivered by a pipe 11 is distributed by the curved wall 13 to the spaces between the walls 12 and plates 15 and the water, passing round the bottom of the plates 15, is discharged through long slits 16 into gutters 39, while the sand settles on the bottom of the tank. To prevent stagnation within the walls 12 short pipes 40 may connect this space with the spaces outside the plates 15. The buckets are formed with forwardlyprojecting lips 23, Fig. 6, and are perforated so that water drains awav as the buckets rise. The buckets may each be attached to the belt 20 of rubber or like flexible material by two short pillars 29 with feet 31 which are arranged obliquely with respect to a transverse line on the belt and are bolted or riveted to the belt. The pulleys have arms 34 extending outwardly and laterally which serve as guides for the belt, those on the pulley 19 serving also to disperse the banks of sand which tend to form at the sides.