Mobile non-polluting cleaning and processing apparatus and method

Abstract

A mobile vehicle having self-contained apparatus for classifying, cleaning and reconstituting granular or pelletized materials, such as catalysts used in chemical plants, without polluting the surroundings, is adapted to travel from plant to plant over conventional highways and quickly placed in operating condition to remove contaminated granular materials from their beds or towers in chemical plants even when hot and process the materials to remove dust and undersized particles, to classify the granules into batches of different sizes for reuse and to filter out pollutants to protect the surrounding atmosphere. The apparatus includes cyclone and bag filters, classifying screens, power driven equipment for creating airstreams picking up the contaminated granular material from its source to propel it through the cyclone separator and convey the separated dust particles through a bag filter before releasing the filtered air to the atmosphere while the separated granular material is fed by gravity to classifying screens from which the different sized screenings are discharged into bins while an airstream pulls dust particles from the screens through another bag filter before discharging the air. The vehicle stores some of the apparatus in a compact low level position and has a crane for setting up the stored apparatus in upright operating position. Bins for the cleaned and classified granular materials are arranged for nesting together during transportation and are easily positioned by the crane for receiving the granular materials from the classifying screens. A second vehicle may be provided to transport the nested bins.