Henry Balfour & Company Limited

Sybron Corporation

James Mitchell

Erwin J Nunlist

David K Smith

Samuel W Maxfield

Nigel Harlow

Thomas N Pye

A rotary lautering machine is provided vertical blades, each blade having a pivotally attached sweeping foot. The sweeping feet are rotated from a first lautering position to a second sweeping position by pressure exerted on the feet by material in the lautering vessel. When the lautering machine rotates in one direction, the feet pivot to the lautering position. When the machine rotates in the opposite direction, the feet pivot to the sweeping position.

Lautering apparatus

A glassed steel wiped film evaporator is provided with an improved feed distributor comprising a one piece circular non-metallic distribution chamber, attached to and rotating with the evaporator wiper assembly, and corrosion resistant feed conduits extending outwardly from said distribution chamber and terminating near the wall of the vessel. This distributor provides the efficiencies of distribution of previous flat plate alloy distributors; and at the same time it is of a sound construction that can be built at reasonable cost from commercially available fluorocarbon and other corrosion resistant materials.

Feed distributor for glassed steel wiped film evaporator

A thin wiped-film evaporator comprises an upright cylindrical vessel with a vertical rotor shaft extending concentrically within the vessel. An inlet pipe supplies liquid to be evaporated to a distributor which spreads the liquid around the inner wall of the vessel, and a series of wiper assemblies carried by the rotor shaft below the distributor serve for the creation of a thin liquid film on the vessel's inner wall, heating means being provided to evaporate the liquid film. The evaporator includes a vapor inlet and a liquid discharge. To enable the evaporator to handle corrosive liquids or products, the internal surface of the vessel is corrosion resistant as are the other parts within the evaporator. In particular, the vessel's inner wall and the rotor shaft are glass (or enamel) lined and additionally at least part of each wiper assembly can be glassed: the other internal parts can be of fluorocarbon. This arrangement enables the evaporator to satisfactorily handle high temperature materials, and is also conducive to greater purity and longer evaporator life. Each wiper assembly includes an axial series of radial finger elements pivotally carried by a spindle: such an assembly satisfactorily caters for out-of-roundness and straightness irregularities in the vessel.

Growing community of inventors

Leven, United Kingdom

James Mitchell