JP2018114435A - Washing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a washing device capable of surely washing a washing object while suppressing occurrence of damage to the washing object.SOLUTION: A washing device comprises: a washing liquid tank 3 in which washing liquid is stored; a washing drum 5 which is immersed in the washing liquid in the washing liquid tank 3, the washing drum 5 having a number of passage holes 5A through which the washing liquid passes, and into which a washing object is put; and an injection part 7 injecting negatively-charged air bubbles into the washing drum 5. With this, a number of negatively-charged air bubbles are adsorbed to the impurities attached to the washing object. Thus, the impurities to which a number of air bubbles are adsorbed are separated from the washing object and float up in the washing liquid together with the bubbles, by buoyancy acting on the air bubbles. Accordingly, it becomes possible to surely wash the washing object while suppressing occurrence of damage to the washing object.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present application relates to a cleaning apparatus that cleans an object to be cleaned such as food in a cleaning liquid such as water.

  For example, the food cleaning apparatus described in Patent Document 1 cleans food by jetting a jet water stream (hereinafter also referred to as aeration jet water) containing fine bubbles.

Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2015-80423

In the invention described in Patent Document 1, since the aerated jet water is sprayed onto the food to wash the food, the food that is the object to be cleaned may be damaged.
In view of the above points, the present application provides a cleaning device that can reliably clean an object to be cleaned while suppressing damage to the object to be cleaned.

The present application is an invention based on the knowledge of the inventors and the like that "contaminants such as adhering substances adhering to an object to be cleaned such as food are often charged."
Specifically, a cleaning liquid tank (3) in which the cleaning liquid is stored, and a cleaning drum (5) immersed in the cleaning liquid in the cleaning liquid tank (3), and a large number of passage holes (through which the cleaning liquid can pass ( 5A), a cleaning drum (5) into which an object to be cleaned is charged, and an injection part (7) for injecting charged bubbles into the cleaning drum (5).

  As a result, a large number of air bubbles with different polarities from the foreign substances are adsorbed on the foreign substances attached to the object to be cleaned such as food. For this reason, the foreign substance which many bubbles adsorb | sucked peels from a washing | cleaning target object with the buoyancy which acts on these bubbles, and it floats in a washing | cleaning liquid with a bubble. Therefore, it is possible to reliably clean the cleaning object while suppressing the occurrence of damage to the cleaning object.

  In general, impurities are positively charged. And when the diameter of a bubble becomes about 50 micrometers or less, the said bubble will be tinged with a negative charge. Therefore, the present application can be easily carried out by injecting bubbles of about 50 μm or less (hereinafter also referred to as microbubbles) into the cleaning drum (5).

  Incidentally, the reference numerals in the above parentheses are examples showing the correspondence with the specific configurations described in the embodiments described later, and the present invention is limited to the specific configurations indicated by the reference numerals in the parentheses. It is not something.

1 is a conceptual diagram of a cleaning device 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. A is a cross-sectional view of the cleaning drum 5 according to the embodiment. B is an enlarged view of a cross section of the cleaning drum 5.

The “embodiment of the invention” described below shows an example of an embodiment belonging to the technical scope of the present invention. In other words, the invention specific items described in the claims are not limited to the specific configurations and structures shown in the following embodiments.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In addition, the arrow etc. which show the direction attached | subjected to each figure are described in order to make it easy to understand the relationship between each figure. The present invention is not limited to the directions given in the drawings.

  At least one member or part described with at least a reference numeral is provided, except where “one” or the like is omitted. That is, when there is no notice such as “one”, two or more members may be provided.

(First embodiment)
In the present embodiment, the present invention is applied to a cleaning apparatus for cleaning food materials such as food raw materials and processed foods. That is, the cleaning object of the cleaning device according to the present embodiment is food.

1. Configuration of Cleaning Device As shown in FIG. 1, the cleaning device 1 includes at least a cleaning liquid tank 3, a cleaning drum 5, an injection unit 7, and the like. The cleaning liquid tank 3 stores cleaning liquid such as water. The cleaning drum 5 is a substantially cylindrical member into which an object to be cleaned is input.

  The cleaning drum 5 is entirely immersed in the cleaning liquid in the cleaning liquid tank 3 and, as shown in FIG. 2A, a number of passage holes 5A through which the cleaning liquid can pass are provided. As shown in FIG. 2B, each through hole 5 </ b> A is a through hole that penetrates the cylindrical cleaning drum 5 in the radial direction, and has a radially outer cross-sectional area smaller than a radially inner cross-sectional area. .

  The cleaning drum 5 according to the present embodiment is configured by a wedge wire screen. The wedge wire screen is formed by arranging a large number of wedge wires 5B extending in parallel with the central axis Lo (see FIG. 1) of the cleaning drum 5 at equal intervals in the circumferential direction.

  Each wedge wire 5B is a wire-shaped member having a cross-sectional shape that is triangular or trapezoidal. The wedge wires 5B are arranged at equal intervals in the circumferential direction so that the bottom side is located on the radially outer side. That is, the outer peripheral surface of the cleaning drum 5 is configured by the bottom portion of each wedge wire 5B.

  And the clearance gap between the adjacent wedge wires 5B functions as the passage hole 5A. Therefore, the passage hole 5A according to the present embodiment is a slit-like through hole extending in a direction parallel to the central axis Lo as shown in FIG.

  The injection unit 7 injects bubbles having a negative charge into the cleaning drum 5. The bubble generating device 9 generates bubbles having a negative charge. Specifically, the bubble generation device 9 generates bubbles of approximately 50 μm or less, that is, microbubbles.

  The bubble generating device 9 includes a pump 9A, a pulverizer 9B, and the like. The pump 9A simultaneously sucks and discharges a gas such as air and water (cleaning liquid). The crusher 9B generates microbubbles by crushing and atomizing the bubbles discharged from the pump 9A.

  The crusher 9B according to the present embodiment uses the Benchery effect to accelerate gas-liquid two-phase water, and crushes bubbles while mixing air and water by turbulent flow generated at that time. To generate microbubbles.

  As shown in FIG. 1, the cleaning drum 5 is arranged in a state where the central axis Lo thereof coincides with the direction intersecting the vertical direction. Specifically, the central axis Lo extends in a substantially horizontal direction so that one end side (left end in FIG. 1) of the cleaning drum 5 is higher than the other end side (right end in FIG. 1).

  The both ends of the cleaning drum 5 in the central axis direction are rotatably supported by a pair of rollers 15 (see FIG. 2A). That is, the cleaning drum 5 is disposed in the cleaning liquid tank 3 so as to be rotatable about the central axis Lo. The first electric motor M1 rotates the cleaning drum 5. The rotation speed of the cleaning drum 5 is about 1 to 5 rotations / minute.

  As shown in FIG. 2A, a spiral blade 11 and a stirring blade 13 are fixed to the inner periphery of the cleaning drum 5. The spiral blade 11 is a strip-shaped member that is spirally curved around the central axis Lo extending from one end side to the other end side in the central axis direction.

  The stirring blade 13 is a wall-shaped member that protrudes from the inner periphery of the cleaning drum 5 toward the central axis Lo and has a surface that intersects (in the present embodiment, orthogonal) with the rotation direction of the cleaning drum 5. In this embodiment, a plurality of stirring blades 13 are provided, and the stirring blades 13 are provided at intervals of 90 degrees in the circumferential direction.

  In the present embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, the object to be cleaned and the microbubbles are thrown into the cleaning drum 5 from one end side in the central axis direction of the cleaning drum 5 (left end in FIG. 1). Then, the object to be cleaned that has been cleaned is discharged from the cleaning drum 5 from the other end side (right end in FIG. 1) in the central axis direction of the cleaning drum 5.

Note that the belt conveyor 17 collects the cleaning object discharged from the cleaning drum 5. The second electric motor M2 operates the belt conveyor 17.
2. 2. Features of the cleaning apparatus according to the present embodiment 2.1 Cleaning operation The object to be cleaned and the microbubbles are cleaned from one end side (left end in FIG. 1) of the cleaning drum 5 rotating at about 1 to 5 rotations / minute. It is put into the drum 5. As a result, a large number of negatively charged microbubbles are adsorbed on the foreign substances attached to the object to be cleaned.

  For this reason, the foreign substance which many microbubbles adsorb | sucked peels from a washing | cleaning target object with the buoyancy which acts on these bubbles, and it floats in a washing | cleaning liquid with a microbubble. The foreign matter floating in the cleaning drum 5 passes through the passage hole 5A of the cleaning drum 5 together with the microbubble and floats upward due to the buoyancy acting on the microbubble.

  The contaminants that have floated up to the liquid level of the cleaning liquid are discharged out of the cleaning liquid tank 3 together with the cleaning liquid from a drain port 3A (see FIG. 1) provided in the upper part of the cleaning liquid tank 3. The cleaning liquid tank 3 at the time of cleaning is always supplied with a constant flow of cleaning liquid. For this reason, the liquid level of the cleaning liquid tank 3 is kept substantially constant.

Since the stirring blade 13 rotates as the cleaning drum 5 rotates, the following stirring function is exhibited.
That is, an object to be cleaned that has a small specific gravity and easily collects on the upper side in the cleaning drum 5 is stirred and transferred toward the lower side in the cleaning drum 5 by the rotation of the stirring blade 13. On the other hand, an object to be cleaned that has a large specific gravity and tends to gather on the lower side in the cleaning drum 5 is stirred and transferred toward the upper side in the cleaning drum 5 by the rotation of the stirring blade 13.

The object to be cleaned in the cleaning drum 5 is transferred to the other end side (right end in FIG. 1) in the central axis direction through the cleaning drum 5 by the rotation of the spiral blade 11. Then, the object to be cleaned from which the contaminants have been peeled and cleaned is discharged from the cleaning drum 5 and then collected by the belt conveyor 17.

  Note that the cleaning apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment can perform both (a) continuous cleaning processing and (b) batch cleaning processing. (A) The continuous cleaning process is a cleaning process in which an object to be cleaned is continuously supplied to the cleaning drum 5. (B) The batch cleaning process is a cleaning process in which an object to be cleaned is supplied to the cleaning drum 5 at predetermined time intervals.

  In addition, about the washing | cleaning target object which requires time for peeling and washing | cleaning of a foreign material, it is desirable to wash | clean a cleaning target object by a batch washing process. At the time of executing the batch cleaning process, the cleaning object can stay in the cleaning drum 5 for a predetermined time while performing the stirring function by rotating the cleaning drum 5 forward and backward.

  That is, when the cleaning drum 5 is rotated forward, the object to be cleaned put into the cleaning drum 5 is transferred from one end side to the other end side in the axial direction and discharged from the cleaning drum 5. When the cleaning drum 5 is reversed, the object to be cleaned is transferred from the other end in the axial direction to one end.

  Therefore, by controlling the normal rotation and reverse rotation of the cleaning drum 5, it is possible to control the time during which the object to be cleaned stays in the cleaning drum 5. That is, by controlling the normal rotation and reverse rotation of the cleaning drum 5 at the time of executing the batch cleaning process, it is possible to control the cleaning time of the object to be cleaned.

2.2 Features of the cleaning operation according to the present embodiment In the cleaning apparatus 1 according to the present embodiment, a large number of microbubbles are adsorbed in the cleaning drum 5 to foreign matters attached to a cleaning target such as food. As a result, the impurities are separated from the object to be cleaned and float in the cleaning liquid together with the microbubbles. Therefore, it is possible to reliably clean the cleaning object while suppressing the occurrence of damage to the cleaning object.

  That is, in this embodiment, since the aerated jet water is not jetted onto the object to be cleaned, the objects to be cleaned hardly rub against each other. For this reason, it becomes possible to wash | clean a washing | cleaning target reliably, suppressing that generation | occurrence | production of damage to a purification | cleaning object.

  Note that the amount of water supplied to the cleaning liquid tank 3 may be such that impurities that have reached the liquid level can be discharged together with the cleaning liquid. Therefore, the amount of water supplied to the cleaning liquid tank 3, that is, the amount of drainage from the cleaning liquid tank 3 can be reduced. As a result, pump power for water supply and drainage can also be reduced.

  In the present embodiment, the entire cleaning drum 5 is immersed in the cleaning liquid. Thereby, it is possible to supply negatively charged microbubbles to the object to be cleaned regardless of the specific gravity of the object to be cleaned.

  That is, if a part of the cleaning drum 5 is positioned above the liquid level of the cleaning liquid, the cleaning target with a small specific gravity will float on the liquid level. For this reason, a sufficient amount of microbubbles cannot be supplied to the object to be cleaned.

  On the other hand, in this embodiment, since the entire cleaning drum 5 is immersed in the cleaning liquid, if the cleaning target exists in the cleaning drum 5, the cleaning target is not affected by the specific gravity of the cleaning target. Microbubbles having a negative charge can be sufficiently supplied to the object. Therefore, it is possible to reliably clean the object to be cleaned.

A stirring blade 13 is provided in the cleaning drum 5 and rotates around the central axis Lo. Thereby, a stirring function is realizable. Therefore, the microbubbles can be reliably supplied to the cleaning target regardless of the specific gravity of the cleaning target.

  As a result, the object to be cleaned can be reliably cleaned. In addition, since the rotational speed of the stirring blade 13 is approximately 1 to 5 rotations / minute, the object to be cleaned is hardly damaged when the stirring function is performed.

  A stirring blade 13 that rotates about the central axis Lo of the cleaning drum 5 is provided. Thereby, the cleaning target in the cleaning drum 5 can be transferred in the direction of the central axis Lo. As a result, it is possible to easily control the cleaning time, the number of times of cleaning, etc.

The stirring blade 13 and the spiral blade 11 are fixed to the inner peripheral surface of the cleaning drum 5. Thereby, the stirring blade 13 and the spiral blade 11 can be easily rotated.
Furthermore, the passage hole 5A is a through hole that penetrates the cleaning drum 5 in the radial direction, and has a radially outer cross-sectional area that is smaller than the radial inner cross-sectional area. Thereby, it is possible to prevent the foreign matter that has passed through the passage hole 5 </ b> A and floated out of the cleaning drum 5 from flowing back into the cleaning drum 5.

(Other embodiments)
In the above-described embodiment, the microbubbles are generated in the atmosphere, that is, air. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this.

  That is, for example, (a) microbubbles may be generated with ozone gas. If it is ozone gas, in addition to the cleaning effect, a cleaning device having a sterilizing effect can be obtained. (B) Microbubbles may be generated with nitrogen gas. If it is nitrogen gas, the dissolved oxygen in the cleaning liquid can be reduced to 0.1 mg / L or less, and the growth of germs can be suppressed.

  The passage hole 5A according to the above-described embodiment was a through hole having a radially outer cross-sectional area smaller than a radially inner cross-sectional area. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this. That is, for example, the passage hole 5 </ b> A configured with a through hole having a constant cross-sectional area may be used.

  The cleaning drum 5 according to the above-described embodiment is configured by a wedge wire screen. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this. That is, for example, the cleaning drum 5 made of a punched metal having a round hole may be used.

  In the above-described embodiment, the stirring blade 13 and the spiral blade 11 are fixed to the inner periphery of the cleaning drum 5. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this.

  That is, for example, (a) a configuration in which at least one of the stirring blade 13 and the spiral blade 11 is abolished, or (b) a configuration in which the cleaning drum 5 is fixed and the stirring blade 13 and the spiral blade 11 rotate. Also good.

  In the above-described embodiment, the cleaning apparatus 1 according to the present application has been described by taking food cleaning as an example. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this. That is, for example, the present invention can also be applied to oil removal of metal processed products and cleaning devices for rubber / resin processed products.

  In the above-described embodiment, since impurities are often positively charged, bubbles having negative charges are injected. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this. When the foreign substance has a negative charge, it is desirable to inject bubbles with a positive charge.

  In the above-described embodiment, the bubbles are negatively charged by setting the diameter of the bubbles to about 50 μm or less. However, the invention disclosed in this specification is not limited to this. That is, the bubbles may be negatively charged by other known methods.

  Furthermore, the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment as long as it matches the gist of the invention described in the claims. Therefore, you may combine at least 2 embodiment among several embodiment mentioned above.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 ... Cleaning apparatus 3 ... Cleaning liquid tank 3A ... Drain port 5 ... Cleaning drum 5A ... Passing hole 7 ... Injection part 9 ... Bubble generation device 11 ... Spiral blade 13 ... Stirring blade

Claims (6)

A cleaning liquid tank in which the cleaning liquid is stored;
A cleaning drum immersed in the cleaning liquid in the cleaning liquid tank, having a plurality of passage holes through which the cleaning liquid can pass, and a cleaning drum into which an object to be cleaned is charged,
A cleaning apparatus comprising: an injection unit that injects charged bubbles into the cleaning drum.   The cleaning apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the entire cleaning drum is immersed in a cleaning liquid. The cleaning drum is disposed in a state where its central axis coincides with the direction intersecting the vertical direction,
The cleaning apparatus according to claim 2, further comprising a stirring blade disposed in the cleaning drum and rotating around the central axis.   The cleaning apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising: a stirring blade disposed in the cleaning drum and having a spiral shape with the central axis as a center, the stirring blade rotating about the central axis. The stirring blade and the spiral blade are fixed to the inner peripheral surface of the cleaning drum,
The cleaning apparatus according to claim 4, further comprising an electric motor that rotates the cleaning drum about the central axis.   The cleaning device according to claim 5, wherein the passage hole is a through hole that penetrates the cleaning drum in a radial direction, and has a radially outer cross-sectional area smaller than a radial inner cross-sectional area.

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