IE64165B1

IE64165B1 - Method and installation for the treatment of drums containing liquid waste

Info

Publication number: IE64165B1
Application number: IE265190A
Authority: IE
Inventors: Jean-Louis Biros; Michel Geffriaud; Bertrand Gontard
Original assignee: Sarp Ind
Priority date: 1989-07-25
Filing date: 1990-07-19
Publication date: 1995-07-12
Also published as: CA2021734A1; CA2021734C; EP0410835A1; PT94803B; IE902651A1; DE69001519D1; PT94803A; FR2650203A1; FR2650203B1; DE69001519T2; ES2041158T3; EP0410835B1; DK0410835T3

Abstract

The invention relates to a process and an arrangement for the treatment of drums containing liquid waste. The process is characterised in that the drums to be treated are pierced and compressed in a single operation, in that the compressed drums are recovered with a view to their recycling, and in that the liquid waste they contained is collected. Application to treatment of waste in drums.

Description

The present invention relates to a process for the treatment of drums containing liquid waste and in particular inflammable, explosive or toxic liquids.

At the present stage of technical progress it is the 5 personnel who open the drums, pour their contents into a tank provided for the purpose, clean the empty drums, if necessary, and convey them to a disposal site. These operations are lengthy and costly and expose the personnel to the risk of toxicity, fire and explosion.

It has therefore been proposed that the drums should be opened by mechanical means and their contents decanted prior to treatment. This known process, however, is still time-consuming and expensive and does not fully eliminate the aforementioned dangers, since the insides of the drums remain exposed to the open air during the decantation of their contents .

British Patent Application GB-A-839.207 also proposes, in the case of very small metal containers, such as beer or fruit juice cans, that these cans should be pierced and compressed in one single operation and that the cans crushed flat should be recovered and their contents collected. This operation is effected with the use of an apparatus in which the containers to be treated are caused to pass one after the other between a compression piston and a hollow piercing device connected to means for discharging to the outside the liquid contained in the receptacle.

An apparatus of the same kind is described in US Patent Application US-A-4.459.906, relating to the treatment of flasks of aerosol set aside as waste. In this system, however, the piercing device is of solid construction and of the sliding type, the contents of the receptacle escaping as soon as it has been pierced and the piercing device has been withdrawn.

In both cases the known methods and apparatus fail to provide a means of achieving the object in view in the present invention, which is to crush large-size industrial drums to a flat cake shape without any risk of fire or explosion and in a manner involving no risk for the operators.

The invention achieves this object by means of an * installation of the type comprising a drum press in which the J5 drums to be treated are conveyed between a compression piston and a hollow piercing device connected to means for discharging to the outside the liquids contained in the drum, the said installation being characterised by the fact that the said drum press comprises a tight press cylinder closed at one end by the said compression piston, which is mobile along the axis of the cylinder in question, and at its other end by a cover which is designed for the axial introduction of the drums to be treated and which is equipped with the aforementioned piercing device.

It will be understood that where the essential requirements are concerned it is sufficient to introduce a closed drum axially into the said cylinder, cause the piercing device to penetrate the drum and actuate the compression piston so that the pierced drum will be compressed to a cake shape, the liquid therein escaping through the hollow piercing device and then being discharged from the cylinder by the means provided for the purpose and collected, for example, in a suitable pit. As regards the drum compressed to a cake shape, this is extracted from the cylinder after the cover has been opened and can be recycled in a metallurgical works.

As the drums are emptied and compressed in a closed cylinder they can be treated without any risk of fire or explosion, even if they contain inflammable or explosive liquids. By this very means the dangers to which the personnel were exposed hitherto are eliminated.

• As in the aforementioned British Patent Application GB-A-839.207, the piercing device may consist of at least one « hollow pin which at the end towards the interior of the cylinder terminates in a point and which is connected at its other end to a discharge pipe for the contents of the drums. According to the invention the pin is advantageously slidable, parallel to the axis of the cylinder of the apparatus, through an opening provided in the cover of the this latter. « t The piercing of the drums, contrary to the method 5 adopted in the aforementioned British Patent, thus takes ·>· place before their compression, which has the particular advantage of enabling the piercing force to be controlled more satisfactorily and thereby preventing any compression of the liquid and thus increasing the degree of safety to be achieved.

The sliding movement of the aforementioned pin or pins .is advantageously obtained as a result of the fact that in the vicinity of their end opposite to the cylinder of the press they are integral with a plate through which they pass and which can slide under the action of at least;' one jack.

This plate preferably slides on columns mounted on the cover of the cylinder of the press, perpendicularly to the said cylinder, so that the said cover, with its pins mounted on their sliding plate, forms an assembly advantageously mounted pivotably on the cylinder of the press and at that end of the latter which is opposite to its compression piston, thanks to the fact that this cover is articulated to the cylinder of the press by one of its edges and can pivot about its articulation shaft by means of at least one double-acting jack.

To facilitate the piercing of the drums the aforementioned pin or pins preferably terminate in a bevel at their end directed towards the cylinder of the press.

In one advantageous version the piercing device is 30 formed by a plurality of pins parallel with one another and including a central pin which extends along the axis of the cylinder and a plurality of peripheral pins arranged in , accordance with generatrices of a revolution cylinder, the axis of this latter coinciding with the axis of the cylinder aforementioned. This arrangement facilitates the treatment of drums of large dimensions with thick walls.

The body of the cylinder of the press according to the invention has a substantially square external cross section . f In the installation to which the invention relates « the drum press described in the foregoing is advantageously '5 associated with a drum collecting crane to form a mobile assembly and also with further suitable items of handling apparatus if necessary.

The invention also relates to a process for the operation of the installation described in the foregoing, this process being characterised by the fact that the drum to be treated is introduced axially into the cylinder of the device, that the cover of this cylinder is closed, that the aforementioned compression piston is displaced until the drum to be treated comes to rest on the cover with only a slight pressure, that the piercing device’ is moved towards the interior of the cylinder in order to perforate the drum, the compression piston then being moved in its turn towards the inside of the cylinder in order to compress the drum, of which the contents flow out through the piercing device, which latter moves out of the way during this last phase, the cover then being opened, so that the treated drum, which has been reduced to a flat cake shape, can be extracted in the axial direction.

The following description, which has no limitative effect, will make it possible to understand clearly how the present invention can be carried out. It must be studied in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, -in which: Figure 1 is a longitudinal section of a drum press according to the invention; - Figure 2 is a partial section of this press, taken along the line II-II of Figure 1; and Figure 3 is an end view of the object of Figure 2, in the direction shown by the arrow III in the latter.

The drum press accoridng to the invention and as shown in these diagrams comprises a cylinder 1, for example of square cross section, closed at one of its ends by a piston 2 movable along the axis X-X', of the cylinder, as indicated, by the double arrow F, under the action of a double-acting jack partly shown at 2a. The cylinder 1 is . preferably positioned horizontally or almost horizontally.

At its other end the cylinder 1 is closed by a cover 3 having openings 4 in which hollow piercing pins 5 can slide parallel to the axis X-X'. These pins terminate in a bevel at the end nearest to the cylinder 1 while at their other end they are integral with a plate 6 through which they pass to form a free end 5', designed to receive a discharge tube not shown in the drawing.

Two double-acting jacks 7 are mounted between the plate 6 and the cover 3 on the two sides of the pin assembly 5, and enable the pins to slide between a position of rest shown in continuous lines in Figure 1 and a perforation and liquid discharge position shown schematically in broken lines in this same Figure 1.

As may be seen more clearly from Figure 2, the plate 6 is guided in this movement by four columns 8. passing through it in the vicinity of its four corners and mounted on the cover 3. This Figure 2 also shows that the cover 3 is articulated by one of its edges on a shaft 9 integral with the cylinder 1, from which it projects laterally, beyond the shaft 9, by an extension 10. A double-acting jack 11 connects at the end of the said extension to the side surface of the cylinder 1 and, when actuated, enables the cover 3 to be opened and closed, as indicated by the double arrow Fl, together with all the elements integral therewith, i.e. the columns 8, the sliding plate 6 and the pins 5, thus enabling the interior of the cylinder 1 to be rendered accessible and closed respectively.

The end view in Figure 3 shows an advantageous way of distributing the pins 5, of which there are in this case six. One of them, 5a, extends along the axis X-X’, four others, 5b, are situated at the apices of a square centered on the pin 5a, and the last, 5c, is situated on the circle passing through the four pins 5b and at an equal distance from two of these latter. This last pin 5c increases the discharge capacity in the lower part of the cylinder 1.

The way in which this device operates is as follows: ? The cover 3 is opened and the pins 5 are placed in « their position of rest by means of the jacks 7. The drums to be treated are conveyed, one at a time into the cylinder 1 by means of handling devices which are not shown and which may comprise a crane integral with the drum press and a spout serving to introduce the drums in succession. then closed. The cover 3 is 1 0 The piston 2 is pushed by the jack 2a until the drum comes to rest on the cover 3 with only slight pressure. The pins . 5 are then pushed into the cylinder 1 by means of the jacks 7. Their bevelled ends perforate and penetrate the drum. The pressure exerted on the pins by the jacks 7 is then relieved. It is at this moment that the jack 2a pushes the piston 2 into the cylinder 1, as a result of which the drum is compressed and its contents at the same time expelled to the outside via the axial perforation of the pins 5 and the tubes which are mounted on the end pieces 5a of these latter and which discharge the liquid into an appropriate pit. During this phase the pins return to their position of rest as and when the piston 2 advances. At the end of this operation the drums will have been reduced to flat cake shapes as aresult of the compression exerted on the piston 2 by the jack 2a. After the cover 3 has been opened they are extracted from the cylinder 1 and can be recycled for use in an ironworks.

It will also be noted that the apparatus described in the foregoing offers the advantage of being of the flame30 proof type and that its items of equipment are operated hydraulically, for example at a maximum pressure of 230 bars and under normal circumstances about 180 bars. The control elements of the assembly are of the conventional type with which specialists in this field are fully familiar, so that no description thereof will be given here.

It goes without saying that various modifications could be. made to the constructional version described without thereby departing from the framework of the present invention. The number and arrangement of the pins 5, for example, could be different, as could also the system for « closing the cover 3, provided the cylinder 1 is thereby 5 tightly closed.

Claims

CLAIMS -ι 1. Installation for the treatment of drums containing liquid waste, of the type comprising a drum press in which 5 the drums to be treated are conveye’d between a compression 5 piston (2) and a hollow piercing device (5) connected to means for discharging to the outside the liquids contained in the drum, characterized by the fact that the said drum press comprises a tight press cylinder (1) closed at one end by the said compression piston (2), which is mobile along the axis 10 (X-X 1 ) of the said cylinder (1), and at its other end by a cover (3) which is designed for the axial introduction of the drums to be treated and which is equipped with the aforementioned piercing device (5).
2. Installation in accordance with claim 1, of the type 15 in which the said piercing device consists of at least one hollow pin (5) which at the end towards the interior of the said cylinder (1) terminates in a point and-which is connected at its other end to a discharge pipe for the contents of the drums, characterized by the fact that the 20 said pin (5) can slide, parallel to the axis (X-X*) of the said cylinder (1), through an opening (4) provided in the said cover (3).
3. Installation in accordance with claim 2, characterized by the fact that the said pin (5) is integral, 25 in the vicinity of the end farthest away from the said cylinder (1), with a plate (6) through which it passes and which is able to slide under the action of at least one jack (7).
4. Installation in accordance with claim 3, 30 characterized by the fact that the said plate (6) slides on columns (8) mounted on the said cover (3) perpendicularly to the latter.
5. Installation in accordance with any one of claims 2 to 4, characterized by the fact that the said hollow pin (5) 35 terminates in a bevelled end directed towards the interior of the said cylinder (1).
6. Installation in accordance with any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized by the fact that the said piercing device is formed by a plurality of pins (5) parallel with one another and including a central pin (5a), which extends along 5 the axis (X-X') of the said cylinder (1), and a plurality of peripheral pins (5b, 5c) arranged in accordance with generatrices of a revolution cylinder, the axis of this latter coinciding with the axis (X-X* ) of the said cylinder (1) . 10
7. Installation in accordance with any one of claims 1 to '6, characterized by the fact that the said cover (3) is articulated to the said cylinder (1) by one of its edges and can pivot about its articulation shaft (10) by means of at least one double-acting jack (11). 15
8. - Installation in accordance with any one of claims 1 to 7, characterised by the fact that the said cylinder (1) has a substantially square external cross section. ·
9. Installation in accordance with any one of claims 1 to 8, characterized by the fact that the said drum press is 20 associated with a drum collecting crane, to form a mobile assembly.
10. Process for the operation of the installation according to any one of claims 1 to 9, characterized by the fact that the drum to be treated is introduced axially into 25 the said cylinder (1), that the said cover (3) is closed, that the said compression piston (2) is moved until the drum to be treated comes to rest on the said cover (3) with only slight pressure, that the said piercing device (5) is then moved towards the interior of the said cylinder (1) in order 30 to perforate the drum, the said compression piston (2) being then moved, in its turn, towards the interior of the said cylinder in order to compress the drum, of which the contents flow out through the said piercing device (5), which latter moves out of the way during this phase, while finally the 35 said cover (3) is opened for the purpose of the axial extraction of the treated drum, which is reduced to a flat cake shape .
11. An installation for the treatment of drums containing liquid waste according to claim 1, substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to 5 and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.
12. A process for the operation of an installation according to claim 1, substantially as hereinbefore described and exemplified.