GB1309036A - Method and apparatus for the bulk processing of hides or the like - Google Patents

Abstract

1309036 Rotary drum apparatus CHALLENGE-COOK BROS Inc 2 July 1971 [19 Aug 1970] 31239/71 Heading C6C [Also in Division D1] Batch processing of hides or like sheet materials of a porous and absorbent nature is carried out in a drum 10 rotatable about an axis which is inclined, e.g. at 16 degrees, to the horizontal and having a pair of internal spiral fins 24, with perforations 30 and extending from the upper, open end 15 to a perforated partition 22 near the inner end 14. The drum, which may be filled with liquid to a level 23, has an inlet 54 for treatment medium and an inlet (not shown), for water, and an outlet 37 which extends to the bottom of the space behind the partition 22 and passes through a support bearing 17. The end 15 of the drum is supported by a roller 16 which may be adjustable vertically. The arrangement allows various treatment media to be admitted to and withdrawn from the drum so that the operations of brine-curing, soaking and washing, unhairing, bating, pickling, tanning, colouring and fatliquoring may be performed successively on a batch of hides. When the drum is rotated in one direction those hides nearer the bottom of the drum are conveyed towards the partition 22, and during such conveyance are pressed by the weight of hides above them against, and are thereby worked by, the beaded edges 31 of the fins 24 and beaded edges 33 of lateral projections 29 from the fins. As they reach the inner end of the drum they are squeezed against the partition 22 and subjected to a lifting and scrubbing action against the surface of the partition which has parallel corrugations 35. Rotation of the drum in the other direction causes the hides to be discharged through the open end 15. Liquid withdrawn from the outlet 37 may be discharged to a sewer or diverted to a holding tank for further use. Treatment medium is supplied to the inlet 54 through a heater and pump which may draw from a supply tank or from the outlet 37. An electronic pH meter, monitors the medium draw from the supply tank and that discharged through the outlet 37.