GB646639A - Method for removal of heavy objectionable material from cereal, legumes and other food products - Google Patents

Abstract

646,639. Pneumatic separating. SUTTON, STEELE & STEELE, Inc. June 17, 1946, No. 18113. [Class 117] Heavy particles of a mass of intermixed divided materials of different specific gravities are separated from light particles, for example, in the removal of heavy objectional material from cereals, legumes and other food products by continuously feeding the mass as from a shoot 18. on to a longitudinally inclined trough-shaped pervious deck 2, agitating and stratifying the material by simultaneously rapidly reciprocating the deck longitudinally and forcing air upwardly through the deck. The upper strata 2<SP>1</SP> of light material is permitted to move down the deck in response to the force of gravity but is positively obstructed as by an adjustable wall 8 until a bed of predetermined thickness of the light material is established on that area of the deck between the point of material feed 18 and the lower end of the deck. The inclination of the deck, the speed of reciprocation thereof and the amount of air forced upwardly through the deck are such that the heavy underlying strata composed of heavy particles will not move up the deck until they are forced into close relationship with one another and into frictional engagement with the deck by the force and weight exerted upon them by the bed 21 of lighter particles. The width of the stream of heavy particles is progressively narrowed, as by converging walls 4, as the heavy particles move up the deck and are discharged from the upper end of the deck through a passage 9. The apparatus described for carrying out the process is the same as that described in Specification 646,698. Specification 207,094, [Class 117], also is referred to.