FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to material dryers. More specifically, the present invention is an industrial machine which enables the drying of large quantities of material such as mining slurry without the use of dangerous and polluting heating components.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

There are many industrial processes which require large quantities of a material to be dried before the material is either transported or subjected to the next step in the refinement or production process. An example of slurry in industry is coal slurry, a mixture of water and pulverized solid coal. This coal slurry mixture is sometimes created in order to transport the coal via a pipeline as opposed to other methods such as train and truck freight shipping. The coal must, of course, be dried before it is burned in a power plant to produce electricity. Additional industrial processes that require large volumes of material to be dried include mining, in which the raw materials are sometimes combined with water for transport to a location where they are dried using a material dryer.

Most material dryers on the market today utilize a heating component that consumes either electricity or combustible materials in order to dry the material with high heat that evaporates all moisture. This method of drying material, though effective, has several drawbacks. The two most prominent of these drawbacks is very high energy consumption and dangerous operation. Traditional heat dryers consume a tremendous amount of energy in order to produce the heat needed to dry the material. Additionally, the heat generated and, in some cases, the fuel consumed by the dryer make the operation of such machinery fairly hazardous. The dryer is also detrimental to the environment because of the tremendous amount of C0 ₂ emitted. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

An inline cyclonic material dryer made according to this invention does not use heat to dry a material. Rather, the dryer creates a cyclonic flow and this flow is inline with the flow of material through the dryer (i.e. a main horizontal flow throughout). The dryer includes a separation assembly that has a water separator with a cone-shaped extraction cavity located between its inlet and outlet ends. The cone-shaped extraction cavity increases in diameter toward the outlet end of the water separator and is in communication with an interior space of the water separator. Moisture flowing along the outer edges of the material flow is skimmed off by the extraction cavity and removed through an exhaust moisture escape in communication with the extraction cavity.

The separation assembly also includes a nose cone which has a larger diameter at its inlet end than at its outlet end. The outlet end of the nose cone is connected to a separation pipe which, in turn, is connected to the inlet end of the water separator. The separation pipe has a same diameter along its entire length.

To further drying performance, additional separation assemblies may be connected in series with an expansion chamber located between each separation assembly. The expansion chamber has a same diameter along its entire length but a larger diameter than the outlet end of the water separator.

The dryer may further include an in-feed assembly connected to an inlet end of the separation assembly. The in-feed assembly includes an air pump and a feed pipe connected to an outlet end of the air pump. The outlet end of the feed pipe is then connected to the inlet end of the nose cone. The feed pipe having a same diameter along its length. A hopper feeds material to be dried into the feed pipe and the flow created by the air pump carries this material into the separation assembly, with the nose cone creating the cyclonic flow.

Once dried to a desired level, the material is deposited in a material receptacle at the end of the separation assembly. Some or all of the components of the dryer may be housed in an enclosure.

A method of drying a material using the inline cyclonic material dryer includes the steps of blowing air into a feed pipe which receives a material to be dried and routing the material to be dried from the feed pipe into a separation assembly. The separation assembly includes a nose cone for creating cyclonic flow, a separation pipe for providing sufficient time for separation of moisture, and a water separator which skims moisture flowing along the outer edges of the passing material to be dried. The water separator has the same structure as that described previously.

The method may also include the step of routing the material to be dried which exits the water separator to an expansion chamber. The expansion chamber has a larger diameter than an outlet end of the water separator. The outlet end of the expansion chamber is then connected to a second separation assembly.

An object of the present invention to create a material dryer which is capable of removing moisture from materials without the need for hazardous- and energy demanding heat generation and does not use heat to do so. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a side view of a preferred embodiment of an inline cyclonic material dryer made according to this invention.

FIG. 2 is a side view of an expansion chamber that is placed between the separation assemblies of FIG. 1 (nose cone, separation pipe, and water separator) and is crucial to the transition between those assemblies.

FIG. 3 is a side view of a nose cone of a second separation assembly, expansion chamber, and water separator of a first separation assembly with a cover (shown in cross- section) and mounting system that obscures and protects the components.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged cross-section view of the water separator showing how the material is separated and the moisture is removed by the water separator.

FIG. 5 is a cross-section view of the water separator.

Elements Used in the Drawings and Detailed Description

10 Inline cyclonic material dryer

20 In-feed assembly

21 Air pump

23 Outlet end of 21

25 Feed pipe

27 Inlet end of 25

29 Outlet end of 25

31 Hopper

40 Separation assembly

41 Nose cone

43 Inlet end of 41

45 Outlet end of 41

47 Separation pipe

49 Inlet end of 47

51 Outlet end of 47

60 Water separator

61 Inlet end of 60

63 Outlet end of 60 65 Wall

67 Gap

69 Extraction cavity

71 Exhaust moisture escape

80 Expansion chamber

81 Inlet end

83 Outlet end

90 Material receptacle

100 Enclosure or housing

DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

All illustrations of the drawings are for the purpose of describing selected versions of the present invention and are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. The present invention is an inline cyclonic material dryer designed to remove moisture from various wet materials like slurry which is a combination of water and pulverized solids.

Referring to FIG. 1, a preferred embodiment of the inline cyclonic material dryer 10 includes an in-feed assembly 20 connected to a separation assembly 40. The in-feed assembly 20 includes an air pump 21, a feed pipe 25, and a hopper 31. The separation assembly 40 includes a nose cone 41, a separation pipe 47, and a water separator 60.

The in-feed assembly 20 starts with the air pump 21 at one end. The air pump 21 is specifically a positive displacement pump which, by design, causes a pulsating air flow to be generated. It is critical that a positive displacement pump be used in order for this embodiment of material dryer 10 to function properly. This is due to the fact that a positive displacement pump provides the same flow regardless of the discharge pressure the pump is subjected to.

Directly connected to the discharge valve (outlet end 23) of the air pump 21 is the inlet end 27 of the feed pipe 25. The feed pipe 25 is a long hollow tube which carries the air flow generated by the air pump 21 to the material being released by the hopper 31 into the feed pipe 25 and through the separation assembly 40. For this express purpose; the hopper 31 is preferably mounted on the top of the feed pipe 25 and at about the middle of the feed pipe 25. The hopper 31 is a large receptacle which stores the material as well as releasing that material into the air flow within the feed pipe 25 as a desired or predetermined time.

Once the material is released into the air flow within the feed pipe 25, the material is carried onwards towards the separation assembly 40. The separation assembly 40 begins with a nose cone 41 whose inlet end 43 is attached to the outlet end 29 of the feed pipe 23 via a flanged connection held together by a plurality of fasteners. The nose cone 41 has an angled cone shape that quickly reduces the diameter of the flow space from the diameter of the feed pipe 25 to the diameter of the separation pipe 47 connected to the outlet end 45 of the nose cone 41.

The purpose of the nose cone 41 is to create two effects that are felt by the material and air flow combination that travels through the nose cone 41. First, the air flow and the material are compressed, which helps to squeeze out moisture from the material. Second, the nose cone 41 causes the air flow to spin and create a cyclonic flow through the separation pipe 47.

The cyclonic air flow simulates a laminar flow within the separation pipe 47. The simulated laminar flow separates out the material and any moisture component of the material, with the heavy solid particles of the material traveling to the center of the flow and the moisture traveling to the outer edges of the flow. All of this takes place within the length of the separation pipe 47, which is effectively a hollow tube connected at an inlet end 49 to the outlet end 45 of the nose cone 41 by way of a flanged connection and a plurality of fasteners.

The length of the separation pipe 47 is important for two reasons. First, the separation pipe 47 must be long enough to allow sufficient time for separation of the moisture from the solids of the material and the dry the material. Second, as the flow travels down the pipe 47, the pressure the air flow is subjected to decreases, causing the air flow to speed up. When this happens, the air flow speeds up to the point that it rushes past the material which is still traveling at a lower speed. The shifting of the air flow past the material causes the material to be air dried. Once the moisture and the solid components of the material are separated, the composite flow of air, moisture, and solid particles travels into the water separator 60. Referring now to FIGS. 4 and 5, the water separator 60 is responsible for removing the moisture from the flow of material and air that travels through the water separator 60. The water separator 60 has a cone shape (as explained below) with the smaller diameter inlet end 61 connected to the outlet end 51 of the separation pipe 47. Inside the water separator 60 is a small gap 67 in the wall 65 which opens into a cone shaped extraction cavity 69. Immediately after the small gap 67, and toward the outlet end 63 of the water separator 60, the walls 65 return to the diameter of the separation pipe 47.

This small gap 67 opens into the cone-shaped extraction cavity 69 of the water separator 60 and causes the moisture traveling on the outer edges of the flow to be skimmed off and removed from the flow. Thus, the water is removed from the material and the material is now much dryer than when the material was initially input into the nose cone 41. The water removed from the material by the water separator 60 is expelled from the system an exhaust moisture escape 71.

Unlike prior art cyclones which pump material tangentially into the cyclone to create cyclonic action, and unlike a hydrocyclone— which has an inlet tangential to a central passageway in order to create cyclonic or tangential flow for separation of a stream into heavier and lighter outlet streams - separation assembly 40 is able to create cyclonic flow through the nose cone 41 with the inlet and outlet streams passing into and out of the nose cone 41 in line with one another and traveling in a horizontal flow. The water separator 60 also does not require an inlet stream tangential to it. The water separator 60 has one outlet stream (though outlet end 63) in line with the inlet stream and the other outlet stream (through exhaust moisture escape 71) at right angles to it.

In a preferred embodiment, the extraction cavity 69 of water separator 60 has a 40° angle or slope, an overall length of 15 inches (about 38.1 cm), and a 12-inch (about 30.5 cm) distance between the outlet end 63 and the end of the small gap 67 (i.e., where wall 65 begins again, thereby placing the wall 65 about 1.5 inches (about 3.8 cm) away from the sloping wall of the extraction cavity 69). Gap 67 is 3.25 inches in length (about 8.3 cm).

Drying of the material could potentially be stopped at this point, and the dried material could be deposited into a material receptacle 90 connected to the outlet end of the separation assembly 40. However, it has been discovered from experiments with the initial prototype of the material dryer 10 that several runs through the feed pipe 25, nose cone 41, separation pipe 47, and water separator 60 are necessary in order to dry the material to desired levels of dryness. An alternate embodiment of material dryer 10 solves this problem by adding additional separation assemblies 40 including the nose cone 41, the separation pipe 47, the water separator 60, and a new component, the expansion chamber 80.

Referring now to FIGS. 2 and 3, the expansion chamber 80 is located directly in between the water separator 60 of a first separation assembly 40 and the nose cone 41 of a next or second separation assembly 40. An inlet end 81 expansion chamber 80 is attached to the outlet end 63 of the water separator 60 by way of a flanged connection and a plurality of fasteners. The outlet end 83 of the expansion chamber is attached to the inlet end 43 of the nose cone 41 of the second separation assembly, again by way of a flanged connection and a plurality of fasteners. The expansion chamber 80 is a large hollow tube which has a much greater diameter than that of the water separator 60. The expansion chamber 80 allows the material to expand again before being forced back through nose cone 41 of the second separation assembly 40.

A preferred embodiment of the material dryer 10 utilizes three separation assemblies 40 of nose cone 41, separation pipe 47, and water separator 60 with an expansion chamber 80 in between each of the assemblies 41. At the start of this series of separation assemblies 40 is the in-feed assembly 20 of the air pump 21, the feed pipe 25, and the hopper 31. At the end of this series of separation assemblies 40 is a material receptacle 90 which stores the dried material after processing by material dryer 10.

It is contemplated that a material dryer 10 made according to this invention may be enclosed in a housing 100 and or mounted in any way as deemed appropriate by the user in order to both obscure and or protect the components of the present invention (see e.g. FIG. 3). Furthermore it is contemplated that the scale of the material dryer 10 may be changed to better suit the needs of the user for either higher volume or lower volume drying capabilities. The size of the dryer 10 and its components, and the number of separation assemblies 40, may easily vary and the functionality of the material dryer 10 is retained as long as the proportions of the dimensions are held constant.

Although preferred embodiments of an inline cyclonic material dryer have been explained in relation to its preferred embodiment, many other possible modifications and variations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as herein described and claimed.