TWI793554B - A tower-shaped continuous and automatic bioreactor and a bioreactor tank device thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a continuous automatic biological feeder and its feeding tank device. It is mainly divided into four parts. The first part is a tower-shaped tank body with multiple layers inside to separate organisms with different growth days. The second part: the biological feed unit, which is inoculated to the uppermost layer of the tower-shaped rearing tank using a venturi tube. The third part: Automatic feed feeding unit, reducing manpower for feeding. The fourth part: the ventilation drying unit, which promotes the air flow in the breeding tank, removes the waste gas produced by the organisms, and simultaneously dries the biological materials and media in the tank. The tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder can be used to raise various organisms, such as black soldier flies, fly maggots, mealworms, etc. It can also be used as a layered continuous fermentation tank to mass-produce microorganisms, such as fungi and bacteria.

Description

Tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder and its feeding tank device

The invention relates to a tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder equipment and a feeding tank device thereof (hereinafter referred to as the present invention). It is suitable for large-scale continuous feeding of microorganisms or higher multicellular organisms, such as microorganisms, insects or earthworms. According to the living habits of organisms, tower-shaped feeding tanks are designed, and related supporting feeding technologies, such as feeding, feeding, ventilation, post-harvest processing, etc., enable continuous and automated large-scale feeding, to simplify feeding equipment and reduce production costs , labor costs and operating space, and through the use of a large amount of organic waste, such as kitchen waste, poultry manure, etc., to enhance resource recycling.

Fermenters or bioreactors, although capable of mass production, are limited to the cultivation of single-celled organisms, such as fermenters for winemaking or bioreactors for mass cell culture. After improvement, the present invention is suitable for cultivating higher multicellular organisms such as insects and earthworms, and is mainly divided into four parts, which are combined and integrated to achieve consistency, continuity and automation.

The company applied for "a continuous automatic bioreactor" in 2018 and obtained an invention patent. After two years of practical application in raising black soldier flies, it was found that although the bioreactor can be produced automatically, the insects can move downward due to geotaxis move, but excrete Matters will accumulate in the feeding layer, which must be cleaned regularly, and the feeding tank is cylindrical, with an unstable center, which is easily dumped by earthquakes and typhoons, and needs to be inoculated at a high place, which is labor-intensive in practice.

Black Soldier Fly Biowaste Processing-A Step-by-Step Guide, written and published by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Secretariat of Economic Affairs (SECO) of the Swiss Federal Ministry of Economics, Education and Research and Development, the main purpose is to use black water Gadflies process a large amount of biological waste such as kitchen scraps and food residues, and they adopt box-rearing methods, which require a lot of manpower, space, and material resources to raise insects.

When raising black soldier flies traditionally, heat and a large amount of feces and exhaust gas will be generated, so they can only be limited to fixed containers and reared in thin layers to facilitate heat dissipation and gas exchange. At present, regardless of the methods of raising black soldier flies, such as box type, box type, pool type, funnel type, etc., a large space is needed to stack or place the rearing containers.

In thin-layer breeding, because there is no ventilation equipment, the waste gas emitted by the growth of organisms accumulates in the rearing box, which is not only unfavorable for the development of organisms, but also requires constant stirring of the breeding medium in the rearing box, which consumes a lot of manpower.

At present, the whole batch of breeding is used for breeding, and a new feeding process needs to be established after harvesting. However, many organisms require different space and food at different developmental stages. The young individuals are small and eat less food. In this way, for For the treatment of organic waste, it cannot provide a stable treatment capacity, which limits the practical application value.

Whole batch feeding, if the young organisms are very small, if they still occupy the same feeding space, it will cause a waste of space, and can only be harvested once in a certain period, and cannot continue to grow and supply stably every day, so it hinders it from being used as feed to feed other poultry every day ,Home livestock, or aquaculture.

In addition, when dealing with the utilization of waste, general waste, such as kitchen waste, is produced every day, and it is necessary to have a continuous automatic feeding system to consume waste stably.

Most of the current black soldier fly breeding does not have an automatic differential feeding unit, and it is not possible to feed a small amount of food multiple times, which may easily cause the feed to ferment in the breeding box, which will increase the temperature, which is not conducive to the growth of the larvae.

The present invention starts from the concept of fermentation tank and bioreactor, and after the actual application in the breeding of black soldier flies, it is found that excrement cannot be discharged, the center of gravity of the breeding tank is unstable, time-consuming inoculation at the initial stage of breeding, the finished product is too wet, and it is difficult to screen insects and feces etc., thereby inventing and improving, solving all the above-mentioned problems at one stroke, and establishing a tower-shaped continuous automatic feeding equipment and a feeding operation management system thereof.

The invention includes four major units, and the overall operation can stably process organic waste every day, and can produce stably and efficiently.

The first part: a feeding tank device, including: a tower-shaped tank, in order to enhance the stability of the bioreactor, and the feeding space will require a larger feeding space due to the growth of organisms and the accumulation of excrement, so the tower-shaped feeding tank is used Designs where the topmost layer is the smallest for inoculation of newly hatched organisms and the bottommost layer is the largest for growth of larger organisms.

At the center of the tower-shaped tank body of the present invention, there is an axis that runs through each layer, and the axis is connected with the motor, and the pushing plates of each layer are connected with the scraping rake and the central axis in the tower-shaped tank body. When the axis rotates, it also drives the pushing plate and the scraping rake, so that the organisms and excrement are pushed to the next layer to continue feeding.

Different feeding layers are separated by partitions inside the tank to provide a platform for organism growth and feeding, and to separate organisms of different growth days. In the same breeding tank, organisms of different growth stages can be reared at mixed ages to achieve continuous automatic production.

In order to make the feeding of mixed ages smooth, the different positions of each layer of feeding laminates are provided with opening slots, and the upper and lower layers are staggered. And before and after the opening, set pusher boards and scraping rakes. When the rotating shaft rotates, the younger organisms and their excrement on the upper layer are pushed down to the next layer by the pushing plate. The opening slots of the feeding layer are designed to be staggered with each other, and the objects pushed down by the upper feeding partition will fall on the empty position of the lower feeding partition. The scraping rake on the next layer can flatten the falling mixture. In this way, the organisms reared on each layer fall to the next layer in sequence, and can grow continuously.

In a specific embodiment, the slots of the lower layer are larger than the slots of the upper layer.

In another specific embodiment, the upper and lower arrangement of the slot holes is staggered by a predetermined angle, which is 360°/n, wherein the value of n can be the number of layers of the multi-layer board.

According to the length of the growth period of different organisms, different numbers of feeder layers can be designed. Taking the black soldier fly as an example, the feeding layer in the tower-shaped tank is divided into 15 layers, each layer is 10 to 20 cm. The newly hatched 5-day-old larvae are small in size and eat less food. feeding. Every 12 to 24 hours, the central rotating shaft rotates once, and it is pushed down to the next floor to continue feeding, so that the worms grow in the reactor for a total of 10 to 20 days. Optimum utilization of space can be achieved.

The present invention can measure the body according to the organic waste to be processed or the organism to be raised Features, the size, height, number and spacing of each layer of the tower-shaped breeding tank can be adjusted, the rotation time of the rotating shaft, etc.

In addition, it is also possible to tailor-make closed or open tower-shaped breeding tanks according to the space or environmental requirements of the breeding place, or make them placed in parallel.

The bottom layer is for the rearing organisms to grow up and be harvested. This layer of partitions is designed as a perforated plate, and a closed air pressure box is connected under it, and the hot air blown in is used to drive gas exchange and dry the bottom layer of feed for the next stage of screening. Separation of organisms and excreta.

Part II: Organism feed unit. This unit mainly uses the Venturi effect to send the newly hatched first-year-old organisms to the top feeding layer to start feeding. It can reduce the work of having to climb above the high-altitude breeding tank when inoculating organisms, thereby saving labor and reducing accidents.

The present invention shrinks the front of the air outlet pipe of the blower to make the pipe diameter smaller, and gradually widens the rear, forming a neck similar to a bottleneck in the middle.

Above the neck, a funnel is attached to facilitate the introduction of the organism to be inoculated.

When inoculating, the organisms are poured into the funnel, and the inoculated organisms in the funnel are sucked into the neck by the Venturi effect and blown out by the generated fast-flowing airflow.

The blown gas pushes the inoculated organisms upwards and enters the top layer of the breeding tank to complete the inoculation.

During inoculation, the air volume and wind speed of the blower are adjusted according to the specific gravity and size of the inoculated organisms, and the output power of the blower inverter is adjusted by the electronic control unit.

Part III: Automatic Feed Feeding Unit. This unit utilizes screw conveyor or air Dynamic diaphragm pump feeding, and according to the characteristics of the feeding, such as solid or liquid nutrients, feed or waste to be treated, such as kitchen waste, animal manure, bean dregs, distiller's grains, etc., are sent to the feeding tank , After the waste to be treated is crushed and blended, it is fully stirred in the mixing tank, and then sent to each feeding layer through the electronic control unit.

The present invention installs regulating valves on the feeding pipes of each layer to adjust the different demands of each layer of feed. According to the feeding age of different organisms in the feeding tank, different amounts of body feed were put into it.

The invention can achieve feeding once per hour, avoiding heat and harmful gases, such as methane and ammonia, generated by the fermentation of feed in the breeding tank.

The fourth part: Ventilation and drying unit, which is composed of a closed air pressure box, a powerful hot air blower, a pressure relief valve, and a chimney-shaped air outlet. The bottom feeding plate of the tower-shaped feeding tank adopts a multi-hole plate, and the bottom is connected with a closed air pressure box. Fresh hot air blows from below, forms wind pressure in the air pressure box, and blows upwards from the holes on the bottom feeding plate. With the principle of hot air rising, the airflow gradually rises with the openings of each layer, and a chimney-type air outlet is installed on the top of the tank to let the gas escape, thereby discharging toxic gas and moisture.

When the temperature drops in winter, the temperature of the hot air blower can be adjusted to make the temperature of the breeding tank higher to accelerate the growth of organisms. Conversely, if heat dissipation is required in summer, cold air is blown in by a blower to reduce the temperature.

This unit can be connected with waste gas treatment equipment to purify the gas and discharge it to reduce the odor in the environment.

In addition to achieving the purpose of ventilation, this unit can also combine the organisms discharged from the bottom layer with the The excrement is dry, which is beneficial for further screening and separation. In addition, by adjusting the temperature and air volume of the hot air blower, a moisture gradient can be formed inside the rearing tank, so that the upper layer has a higher humidity, which is conducive to biological growth, and the lower layer has a lower humidity, which is conducive to drying the output and facilitating the biological and biological processes. Separation of excrement.

The discharged dry matter passes through the vibrating screening machine, and separates organisms, excrement and sundries through the screens of different calibers on the vibrating screening machine. Taking the breeding of black soldier flies as an example, the separated black soldier fly insect body and insect excrement are sent to the retention tank for purification, and the insect excrement can be packaged and sold as organic fertilizer.

After the organisms and excrement are screened and separated, another retention tank can be connected, and acrylic polymer resin or wood chips, etc. are placed in the tank, and the harvested organisms are introduced into the retention tank, so that the organisms can remove the undigested waste in the intestinal tract or fecal emptying. Among them, the acrylate polymer resin still has the function of deodorization and reduces the odor of organisms.

The number of days of residence depends on the time it takes for different organisms to empty the intestinal tract with feces. Organisms after the expiration of the retention period can be made into fresh bodies for sale or sent to cooking tanks for inactivation and disinfection according to the purpose of use. After disinfection, it is dried, degreased and crushed to make a high-protein product, which can be stored for a long time and used as a feed additive for aquaculture or animal husbandry to replace expensive fish meal.

Taking the breeding of black soldier flies as an example, inoculating the first instar larvae in the same feeder every day, and harvesting the mature larvae and feces at the bottom of the feeding tank at the same time, can make the breeding process run continuously and automatically, achieve optimal feeding, and save a lot of money. People, energy and space.

The so-called feeding organisms in the present invention include but are not limited to various insects, such as black soldier flies, fly maggots, mealworms, crickets, spodoptera litura, silkworms, cockroaches, lacewings, Indigo moth, beetle, ground soft-shelled beetle, etc., and earthworms, microorganisms, aquaculture organisms and other feed or natural enemy organisms can also grow in this breeding tank.

The materials used in the present invention to feed organisms include but not limited to organic wastes, such as kitchen waste, animal manure, animal carcasses, bean dregs, tea dregs, coffee dregs, fallen leaves, wheat dregs, distiller's grains, swamp sludge, slaughterhouse waste, Food factory waste, fruit and vegetable market waste, etc.

The management system of the continuous automatic biological feeder used in the present invention comprises five major units: a tower-shaped tank body, a living body feeding unit, an automatic feed feeding unit, a ventilation drying unit and an electric control unit.

electronic control unit. The tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeding tank uses a programmable logic controller (programmable logic controller, PLC) to control each unit of the entire bioreactor to achieve integrated operation. For example, the rotation time of the axis of the feeding tank, the frequency converter of the Venturi tube blower when inoculating organisms, the time of the feeding unit, the operation time of the fan of the ventilation and drying unit, the hot air time of the drying unit, etc., and a monitoring device is installed to monitor the temperature, humidity and exhaust gas concentration.

1: tower-shaped tank

11: Central shaft

12: Feeder laminates

121: slot

122: scraping rake

123: push plate

13: Exhaust valve

2: Organism feeding unit

21: Organism Placement Slot

22: delivery pipe

221: Venturi tube

23: Blower

24: snorkel

3: Automatic feed feeding unit

31: regulating valve

32: Feed pipeline

321: Feeding tube

322: Nozzle

33: pump

34: storage tank

4: Ventilation and drying unit

41: Blower

42: Hole board

43: motor

Fig. 1 is a configuration diagram of the conical feeder of the present invention.

The 2nd figure is each layer plate and pusher plate and scraping rake figure in the raising tank body of conical feeder of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is a diagram of the living body feeding unit of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is a diagram of the automatic feed feeding unit of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a diagram of the ventilation drying unit of the present invention.

Taking Black Soldier Fly Breeding as an Example

The conical feeding tank body (1) is designed to be 4 meters in bottom diameter, and the top floor is 0.64 meters in diameter, and the feeding tank height is 4 meters. A layer of feeding partitions is designed every 20 cm inside, with a total of 15 layers.

Get the worm body on the 6th day after 50 grams of eggs hatch.

The organism placement tank (21) above the biological feeding unit (2) is inoculated, and sent to the uppermost layer of the breeding tank body through the venturi tube (221) and the delivery pipe (22).

The bean dregs with a water content of about 70% are introduced into the storage tank (34), and sent to each feeding layer (12) via the automatic feed feeding unit (3), and different bean dregs supply are set according to the feeding amount of the instar.

Set the electronic control unit to feed once an hour.

Set the central rotating shaft (11) to rotate once every 12 hours to push the upper layer mixture to the next layer.

Start the ventilation drying unit (4) and set it to run for 5 minutes every 10 minutes.

The bottom outlet of the breeding tank (1) discharges the finished product every 12 hours, and is sent to the vibration screening machine by the conveyor belt for the first screening.

The system can consume 700 kg of bean dregs per day, produce about 150 kg of black soldier flies fresh worms, and about 300 kg of insect feces. The operation of this system requires about 1.5 manpower/day.

In view of the description of the above-mentioned embodiments, it is possible to fully understand the operation and use of the present invention. Use and the effect that the present invention produces, but the embodiment described above is only the preferred embodiment of the present invention, when can not limit the scope of the present invention implementation with this, promptly according to the patent scope of the present invention and the content of the description of the invention done simply Equivalent changes and modifications all fall within the scope of the present invention.

1: tower-shaped tank

11: Central shaft

12: Feeder laminates

13: Exhaust valve

2: Organism feeding unit

21: Organism Placement Slot

22: delivery pipe

23: Blower

24: snorkel

3: Automatic feed feeding unit

31: regulating valve

32: Feed pipeline

33: pump

34: storage tank

4: Ventilation and drying unit

41: Blower

42: Hole board

43: motor

Claims (12)

A tower-shaped continuous automatic feeder, which includes: a tower-shaped tank body, which is equipped with a plurality of layers of feeding laminates stacked up and down, and the upper layer is used to feed the mixture of organisms to be cultivated and feed, respectively. The plurality of feeder layers are jointly driven by a central rotating shaft, and each of the plurality of feeder layers is provided with: a slot hole, at least one scraping rake for leveling the mixture, and at least one pusher plate for The scraped mixture is pushed into the feeder layer of the lower layer through the slot, wherein the slot and the slot of the lower layer are staggered and arranged on a non-same vertical plane, and each layer has at least one scraping rake and At least one pusher plate of each layer is driven by a motor; a living body feeding unit is arranged on one side of the tower-shaped tank body, and includes a living body placement groove for putting the living body into it, and a conveying pipe, respectively Connected to the organism placement tank and the upper layer of the tower-shaped tank body, used to feed the organisms to the tower-shaped tank body; an automatic feed feeding unit, connected to each of the multiple layers of feeding layer boards, used to feed the organisms to the tower-shaped tank body; The feed is fed into each of the plurality of feeding layers; and a ventilation and drying unit is located at the bottom of the tower-shaped tank, including a hot air blower, an air pressure box, and a perforated plate with a plurality of holes. The hot air blower is used to After the fresh air is heated, it is blown into the air pressure box, and the heated air is blown upward layer by layer through the hole plate by the wind pressure, wherein the organisms enter the lower layer layer by layer from the upper feeding layer , until the bottom layer of the feeder layer completes the growth. The feeder as described in Item 1 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the tower-shaped tank is conical shape. As for the feeder described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application, a venturi tube is connected to the bottom of the organism placement tank, and the venturi tube is connected to the delivery pipe, and the delivery tube is connected to the upper layer of the tower-shaped tank body for the biological The body is fed to the tower-shaped tank. The feeder as described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application further includes an electronic control unit for controlling the driving speed of the central shaft, the feeding speed of the automatic feed feeding unit, and the wind speed of the ventilation and drying unit. The feeder described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application further includes a vibrating screening machine for separating dried organisms and excrement. The feeder as described in Item 1 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the automatic feed feeding unit uses a screw conveyor or a pneumatic diaphragm pump for feeding. The feeder described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the organisms raised by the feeder are black soldier flies, fly maggots, mealworms, crickets, spodoptera litura, silkworms, cockroaches, ground beetles, grass Linglings, beetle moths, beetles, earthworms, microorganisms, aquaculture organisms, and other organisms used for feed or natural enemies. The feeder described in item 1 of the scope of the patent application, wherein the feed is bean dregs, kitchen waste, fruit and vegetable residues, distiller's grains, tea residues, coffee grounds, poultry manure, slaughterhouse waste, animal carcasses, food factory waste , sludge, sludge, or other organic waste. A feeding tank device for a tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder for feeding organisms, comprising: A plurality of layers of feeder boards stacked up and down, the upper layer is used to feed the mixture of organisms to be cultured and feed respectively, each of the multiple layers of feeder boards is provided with: a central cylindrical axis; a slot hole; at least one scraping rake fixed to the center of the central cylinder for scraping the organism; at least one pusher plate fixed to the center of the center of the cylinder for the scraped mixture to pass through The slots are pushed into the feeding layer of the lower layer, wherein the slots and the slots of the lower layer are staggered and arranged on non-same vertical planes; and a central rotating shaft driven by a motor runs through and is arranged in the center of each central cylinder axis, To drive the rotation of at least one scraping rake and at least one pusher plate of each of the plurality of feeding layers, wherein the organisms enter the lower layer from the upper feeding layer until the bottom feeding layer is completed grow. The feeding tank device for the tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder described in item 9 of the scope of the patent application further includes an electronic control unit connected to the motor to control the rotation speed and rotation time of the motor. As the feeding tank device for the tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder described in item 9 of the patent scope of the application, wherein the upper and lower configurations of the slots are staggered by a predetermined angle, which is 360°/n, wherein the n is The number of layers of the multi-layer board. As the raising trough device for the tower-shaped continuous automatic biological feeder described in item 9 of the scope of the patent application, the slot hole of the lower layer is larger than the slot hole of the upper layer.

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