GB717918A - Process and apparatus for separating maize starch and gluten solids - Google Patents

Abstract

717,918. Separating starch and gluten. MAATSCHAPPIJ VOOR KOLE NBEWERKING STAMICARBON N. V. Aug. 27, 1951 [Aug. 29, 1950], No. 20109/51. Class 121 In a process for separating maize starch from gluten suspended in a liquid, using a separating station or stations where separation is effected according to settling rate, all or part of the suspension is fed continuously under pressure, e.g. 36 to 114 lb./sq. in., through a radially symmetrical chamber having a peripheral wall which comprises a surface of revolution, so that the suspension is rapidly rotated with increasing angular velocity from the periphery inwards to develop a shearing action which diminute the gluten particles and leaves the starch particles substantially unchanged. The chamber may have an inlet 4, a cylindrical wall 2, Fig. 4, and end walls through one or both of which intrudes an axial tube 3 which discharges the diminuted suspension into a casing 1 having an outlet 5. The apparatus shown in Fig. 4, is called a diminutor. The chamber may take the form of a conical hydrocyclone. e.g. as described in Specification 607,787, [Group II], which discharges faster settling particles from its apex aperture and slower settling particles from an opposed aperture. The chamber may be a vortex chamber as described in Specifications 661,050 and 671,943, [both in Group II], All the suspension may be passed through a diminutor and then separated into starch and gluten fractions at a single separating station. In a modified process, the suspension is separated at a single station into a starch, a gluten and a middlings fraction and the latter is returned continuously to the station through a diminutor. In another modification, the suspension is passed through a hydrocyclone and the apex fraction is separated at a separating station into a starch and middlings fraction. The other fraction from the hydrocyclone is likewise separated into a gluten and a second middlings fraction. Both middlings fractions are then returned to the hydrocyclone. In a further modification the suspension is separated at a single separating station into a starch fraction and a middlings fraction which is separated in a hydrocyclone into a gluten fraction and a mixture of starch and. gluten which is returned to the station. A separating station may comprise one or more starch tables and/or centrifuges. A multiplicity of hydrocyclones connected in parallel as described in Specification 700,387, [Group II], or a multiplicity of diminutors may be used.