Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt

Braunschweigische Maschinenbauanstalt Ag

Werner Gruenewald

An apparatus for preparing plant material, such as sugar cane, comminutes the material for further processing, for example, by cane mills or a diffuser. An upfront cutter (2) and a shredder (8) are immediately adjoining each other at the end of an adjustable speed conveyor (1). A material guide housing forms with its guide channel sections an inverted V-shape. One guide channel section reaches upwardly and extends over the discharge gap (6a) of the upfront cutter. Another guide channel section reaches downwardly to the shredder. An intermediate guide channel section interconnects the upwardly and downwardly reaching sections to form a closed guide channel construction. An upper channel wall portion remote from the upfront cutter and from the shredder forms an impact and deflection baffle (11c) for the precomminuted material ejected by the upfront cutter for feeding the material to the shredder. The apparatus is compact and assures a uniform material feed to the shredder.

Apparatus for comminuting plant material for further treatment

Liquids, such as sugar cane juices, are removed from fibrous materials by an apparatus which receives the fibrous, felt type or matted materials in strand form, for example from a sugar cane diffuser. Two hollow compression rollers having perforated circumferential walls are pressed toward each other for working in a compression range of about 0.5 kg/cm.sup.2 to about 50 kg/cm.sup.2, and form a material feed-in gap facing substantially upwardly. The rollers are arranged above liquid collecting troughs. Lateral funnel forming walls sealingly close the ends of the feed-in gap so that the rollers together with these lateral walls form a feed-in funnel. Material entraining members cover the holes in the perforated circumferential roller walls but with a spacing between the outer roller wall surface and the respective entraining member to form a liquid flow channel into each hole. The material is supplied into the feed-in gap through a substantially vertically extending chute reaching to or into said funnel. The substantially vertically downwardly extending column of material in the chute assures a uniform and continuous material supply into the feed-in gap due to the pressure of the material column. Further, the liquids pressed out of the material between the rollers flow along the shortest possible path through the interior of the rollers into the collecting troughs.

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Wolfenbuettel, Germany

Werner Gruenewald