JPH0425778B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a cleaning device for green tea leaves supplied as raw materials to a tea manufacturing plant.

[Background technology and problems]

Conventionally, devices described in Utility Model Publication No. 1986-8648 and Utility Model Publication No. 58-23273 are widely known as devices for cleaning green tea leaves with sand, mud, rubber, agricultural chemicals, etc. , a rotating shaft is installed in the barrel that is immersed in a water tank and is hung horizontally through the barrel, and a stirring hand is attached to this to rotate this, or the barrel itself is rotatably supported, and the entire barrel is rotated. The purpose is to agitate the green tea leaves dropped into the barrel to remove sand and mud adhering to the green tea leaves and wash them.

However, in this cleaning method, the green tea leaves are stirred by mechanical action, so they are susceptible to mechanical damage, and these devices require some kind of mechanical stirring member, so the mechanism is Becoming more complex and larger.

For this reason, the present applicant has developed a so-called bubble agitation method that avoids mechanical damage during agitation by agitating the green tea leaves in water using air bubbles, transporting them to the extraction end with a water stream, and taking them out on a belt conveyor. He invented a cleaning method and a cleaning device called the water jet method, and has already applied for a patent (Japanese Patent Application No. 46693/1986).
62-224238), but the problem remained that it lacked cleaning power for stubborn stains like water scale and stains around the base of leaves and stems.

In other words, although it was able to sufficiently lift out dirt, it lacked the ability to wipe away the raised dirt.

[Purpose of the invention]

The present invention also takes advantage of the advantages of the bubble agitation water flow type,
Furthermore, the present invention aims to provide a tea leaf washer that can deal with such difficult-to-remove stains.

〔Example〕

First, the inventions set forth in claims 1, 3, and 4 will be described with reference to illustrated embodiments, and then the invention set forth in claim 2 will be described only with respect to the differences therefrom.

First, the basic structure of a bubble agitation water flow type tea leaf washer will be explained.

This is a large water tank 3 placed on the machine frame 2.
, a belt conveyor 4 whose starting end is immersed in water in the water tank 3, a water circulation machine system 5 that generates a flow of water in the water tank, a supplementary water supply system 6 that sprinkles finishing water and also serves as finishing water to the water tank. It also includes an air supply system 7 that generates bubbles in water or the like.

The tank 3 is a rectangular parallelepiped tank with a length of 2 m, a width of 1 m, and a depth of about 0.4 m.
A letter-shaped partition wall 8 is provided to form a waterway shaped like the letter "no" that goes around the outer circumference and then around the inner circumference, and the bottom of the waterway before the first corner and before the fourth corner is filled with sand and mud sediment. A groove 9 is provided. Further, a wire mesh is provided above the groove.

The starting end of the outer periphery and the bottom of the end of the inner periphery of the water channel, which is formed in the shape of an approximately "no" character, are opened wide to serve as a water supply port 10 and a discharge port 11, respectively.
11 is connected with a communication pipe 12 inside the water tank lower machine frame 2,
This communication pipe 12 is constructed into a water tank with an underground tunnel. In addition, a green tea leaf supply section 38a of a leaf feeder 38, which will be described later, faces above the water supply port 10 and near the water surface. The communication pipe 12 is a part of the water circulation system 5 that circulates the water in the water tank 3 so that it goes around the outer periphery of the water channel and then around the inner periphery. In particular, the part that is continuous with the water supply port 10 is a part of a straight hanging part. 12a, and at its lowest horizontal part, it partially branches 12b in the vertical direction, and an overflow pipe 13 is communicated with this branch 12b.

The tip 13a of the overflow pipe 13 has an overflow structure corresponding to the vicinity of the upper surface of the water tank 3, and its discharge height can be adjusted up and down by the up and down adjustment mechanism 14.

Further, 15 is a sand and mud discharge valve further branched from the overflow pipe 13.

Further, a motor 16 is attached to the water tank outer machine frame 2 in the vicinity of the water supply port 10 so that its shaft 16a is in the vertical direction, and a screw 17, which is a water flow generating device, is attached to the hanging part 12a of the communicating pipe.
a, and these two shafts 16a, 1
Connect 7a with a pulley and belt. The water circulation system 5 is configured as described above.

The belt conveyor 4 rises from the end of the waterway to the outside of the water tank 3 so that the tip of the belt conveyor 4 is slightly submerged in water from its starting end, and the submerged part covers the discharge port 11 of the water tank 3. Provided in an inclined manner so as to protrude greatly.

This belt conveyor 4 uses an air-permeable net belt made of polyester as a belt, and rolls 4a, 4a that are pivotally supported at both ends of a conveyor frame.
It is constructed so that it can be driven by a motor 18 at the tip.

Next, the air supply system 7 will be explained.

The air supply system 7 includes an air guide pipe that generates air bubbles in the aquarium, as well as a fumarole pipe that removes leaves remaining on the belt conveyor. A pipe made of vinyl chloride with a hole 20 drilled in it is placed in the water tank 3 slightly raised from the bottom, extending over almost the entire area of the waterway and the part submerged in water at the beginning of the belt conveyor 4. The air pump 21 is installed and connected to an air pump 21 housed within the water tank outer engine frame 2 and piping 22. At this time, a particularly large number of blowholes are drilled in the air guide pipe located near the starting end of the waterway.

On the other hand, the fumarole pipe 23 is installed in the tip turning part of the belt conveyor 4 in a direction perpendicular to the belt, and has a large number of fume ports 24 bored facing the back side of the belt, and is connected to the air pump 21 and the air guide pipe 19. 22
A branch pipe 25 is formed from the pipe.

Further, a small diameter air guide tube 40 is branched from the piping 22 from the air pump to the air guide pipe 19,
The tip thereof is communicated with the lower part of the hanging portion 12a of the communication pipe 12.

Next, the fresh tea leaves scooped up onto the belt conveyor 4 are washed with clean water, and some of the waste water is transferred to the water tank 3 as make-up water, and most of the other waste water is collected and filtered as it is and then reused again. The finishing water/replenishment water supply system 6 which supplies finishing water as finishing water will be described.

26 is the water tank 3 where the belt conveyor 4 is above the water.
A water sprinkling pipe that is arranged on the conveyor from slightly above the inner side to the tip of the belt conveyor 4 and has a large number of water sprinkling ports 27, and at least one of the water sprinkling ports 27 is arranged on the conveyor located inside the water tank 3. In addition, a water supply pipe 28 is communicated in the middle.

A falling water collection chute 29 is installed on the lower surface of the belt conveyor 4 that protrudes outside the water tank 3 according to its inclination.
is suspended, and a guide chute 30, which is inconsistent with the lower end of the chute, is attached to the side of the machine frame 2 so as to face the first filtration tank 31 below.

The first filtration tank 31 is at a different level from the second filtration tank 32 housed below the machine frame 2, and has a supernatant outlet 33 opened near the top surface of the tank 31 on the machine frame shelf 2a next to it. A second filtration tank 32 is provided so as to face it.

An opening is formed in the second filtration tank 32 and piping 35 is connected to the water suction side of the water supply pump 34.
An automatic water supply device 37 connected to a water pipe 36 is housed inside.

On the other hand, the water discharge side of the water supply pump 34 and the water sprinkling pipe 2
6 and are connected by a water supply pipe 28.

In the tea leaf cleaning machine 1 based on such a configuration, a rotating brush is rotatably installed in the water channel, but in this embodiment, a large diameter cylindrical brush is simply installed horizontally. Instead, a large number of small-diameter cylindrical brushes 41 are protruded in a radial spiral shape at intervals in the direction of the shaft 42, and can be rotated and started by a geared motor 44 attached to the machine frame 2 via a universal joint 43. It is located underwater downstream of the waterway.

Next, the equipment installed before and after the green tea leaf washer 1 will be explained.

38 is a leaf feeder facing the starting end of the waterway formed in the water tank 3 from above, and its delivery speed etc. can be adjusted freely.

Further, 39 is a dewatering machine disposed below the tip of the belt conveyor 4, and a continuous type or a batch type is appropriately arranged.

[Effect]

First, the flow of water in the water tank 3 will be explained.

When the motor 16 is driven, its rotation is transmitted to the screw 17, which rotates, and the water in the communication pipe 12 is pushed out of the water supply port 10, and the water at the end of the water channel is sucked into the communication pipe 12 from the discharge port 11. , a flow of water occurs along a waterway with the start of the waterway as upstream and the end of the waterway as downstream.

If there are green tea leaves in this water stream, they will be washed downstream.

On the other hand, when the water becomes contaminated with sand and mud, the sand and mud gradually move downstream while sinking into the water, fall into the sand and mud sedimentation groove 9 in the middle of the waterway, and are accumulated there and removed. Further, the sand and mud that has moved to the discharge port 11 and fallen there is discharged by opening the sand and mud discharge valve 15 provided in the overflow pipe 13.

In addition, the amount of water in the water tank 3 decreases as the green tea leaves are scooped out by the belt conveyor, but the amount is increased by refilling, and the excess water is removed from the overflow pipe 13.
The water overflows from the tip 13a of the tank 3, and the water level inside the tank 3 is maintained at a constant level.

Next, the finishing water/supplementary water supply system 6 will be explained.

First, open the main tap of the water supply, and when enough water has accumulated in the second filtration tank 32 by the action of the automatic water supply device 37, drive the water supply pump 34, and the water accumulated in the second filtration tank 32 will be discharged. The water is sent to the water sprinkling pipe 26, squirts out from each water sprinkling port 27 in the form of a fountain, and is sprayed onto the belt conveyor 4, where the green tea leaves are finished and washed if they are being moved there.

At this time, the water sprayed from the water spout located inside the aquarium 3 mixes into the water in the aquarium 3 as it is.
Used as water for cleaning the aquarium. In other words, a portion of the finishing water is directly supplied to the water tank 3, which is a rough washing container, as supplementary water.

On the other hand, the water sprayed by the belt conveyor part protruding to the outside of the water tank 3 passes through the net belt and is directed from the falling water collection chute 29 below to the guiding chute 3.
0 and is collected into the first filtration tank 31.

When the water collected in the first filtration tank 31 accumulates to the position of the supernatant extraction port 33 opened in the tank, only the upper supernatant water overflows from the port 33 and flows into the second filtration tank 32. and move.

As mentioned above, the second filtration tank 32 is automatically replenished from the water pipe 36 using the automatic water supply device 37 to keep the water level in the tank constant. It is also replenished by Then, the water here is again supplied to the water sprinkling pipe 26.

Next, the air supply system 7 will be explained.

The air pumped by the air pump 21 is guided to the air guide pipe 19 and ejected as bubbles from each of the jet ports 20 in the water, thereby stirring the water in the water tank 3.

At this time, the water near the starting end of the waterway where the delivery end of the leaf feeder 38 faces is particularly vigorously agitated by the many blowholes.

In addition, a hanging part 12 of a communicating pipe branched from the pipe 22
Bubbles are also generated from the tip of the air guide tube 40 below a, and the bubbles pass from the hanging part 12a of the communicating tube, pass through the water supply port 10 at the waterway starting end opening, and float to the water surface directly above the water supply port 10.

On the other hand, the compressed air branched from the air pump 21 is strongly blown through the blow pipe 23 in the tip turning section of the belt conveyor 4 so as to pass through the conveyor belt.

Furthermore, the rotation of the geared motor 44 is controlled by the universal joint 4.
3 to the shaft 42, each small diameter cylindrical brush 4
1 is rotating as if forming several wiping walls in the downstream waterway with its rotation trajectory.

Next, drop the fresh tea leaves into the water tank 3 and then the dehydrator 3.
I will mainly explain the effects that the fresh tea leaves undergo until they are dropped on the ground.

The green tea leaves dropped into the water tank 3 from the green tea leaf supply section 38a of the leaf feeder 38 are submerged in the water as soon as they land directly below the water surface, and repeatedly float and sink.

Normally, if you just drop tea leaves on the water surface, they will float. Furthermore, even if the agitation is weak, it will not be able to keep up with the feeding capacity of the leaf feeder, and the floating green tea leaves will gradually accumulate, so it is better to make the agitation by air bubbles particularly vigorous near the area where the tea leaves are to be dropped.

The green tea leaves that are being stirred by the air bubbles are moved downstream by the flow of water, repeating up-and-down movement in the water by the water flow driven by the screw 17, and during this time, the sand that is attached to the green tea leaves is Mud and other dirt are washed away by contact between green tea leaves and by collision with water and air bubbles.

However, in the case of dirt that has stubbornly adhered in the form of water scale, or dirt that has adhered to the base of leaves and stems, even if it reaches the end of the process, the dirt will simply stand out on the surface and will not be completely wiped off. .

So, once these dirty green tea leaves reach the downstream,
While the small-diameter cylindrical brushes 41 are rotating, they slip through as if breaking through the wiping wall due to the rotation locus of each small-diameter cylindrical brush 41, and during this time they come into contact with the brushes, and the surface is wiped off, removing even stubborn dirt. be dropped.

At this time, in this embodiment, since the rotating brush is a large number of small-diameter cylindrical brushes 41 protruding in a radial spiral shape at intervals in the direction of the axis 42,
The rotation trajectory of each brush and the wiping trajectory appear one after another like a wiping wall, increasing the chances of contact with the fresh tea leaves.

Although the large-diameter cylindrical brush 45 shown in FIG. 5 can wipe off the dirt that comes into contact with the green tea leaves and stands out on the surface, it occupies a considerable amount of space in the water, so the amount of water is insufficient and the water gets dirty. It is easy to use, and the chances of contact are not as large as those of the small diameter cylindrical brush 41.

After the stubborn dirt has been wiped off by the rotating brushes 41 and 45, the green tea leaves are left to the water flow, and then the belt conveyor 4 is directed to the part that is floating above the water, and the part submerged in the water comes into contact with the conveyor belt. Then, the belt conveyor 4 scoops the water out of the water tank 3.

While the green tea leaves are being moved up the belt conveyor 4, they receive water from the sprinkling pipe 26 that is much cleaner than the washing water used up until now, and are subjected to finishing washing. Then, it is dropped as it is from the delivery end of the belt conveyor 4 into the dewatering tank of the dehydrator 39.

When the green tea leaves that are not completely dropped at the tip of the belt conveyor 4 and remain attached to the conveyor belt reach the returning surface of the conveyor, they are moved to the dehydrator 3 by the pressure air from the blow pipe 23.
9 The net conveyor belt itself is also cleaned as it is blown away into the dewatering tank.

Here, if the dehydrator installed after the green tea leaf washing machine 1 is a continuous type, there is no need to take any special measures, but if it is a batch type, unless something like a pool is interposed, The screw 17 and belt conveyor 4 of the green tea leaf washer 1 must be driven intermittently. In this case, when the screw 17 is stopped and the air bubbles generated in the hanging part 12a of the communicating pipe pass through the water supply port 10 and rise to the surface, the volume of the bubbles is
The water is pushed up and a weak current is generated, and the dropped green tea leaves due to this weak current also flow downstream at a very low speed.
If the belt conveyor 4 is also stopped, green tea leaves can be continuously fed and then taken out intermittently.

Next, the invention recited in claim 2 will be explained.

In the basic configuration described above, the inner wall of the aquarium is made up of brushes, but as an example, a sheet 46 of artificial grass, such as one used for golf practice, with long brushes is attached to the inner wall of the aquarium. Become.

Incidentally, in the case of the invention described in claim 4, it was expected that a fairly strong cleaning effect would be achieved by increasing the relative speed of the brush during contact with fresh tea leaves by rotating the brush, but this claim In the case of the described invention, a cleaning effect is expected due to contact with the brush, which is the inner wall, solely due to the bubble agitation movement of the green tea leaves.

Therefore, although this is not as good as according to the invention described in item 4, the dirt raised on the surface is wiped off even if it comes into contact with the brush, which is the inner wall.

In this case, there is an advantage that no power is required, and if a rotating brush is also used, a considerable cleaning effect can be obtained.

〔Effect of the invention〕

In the present invention, a brush is provided on the inner wall of the waterway, a rotatable brush is provided in the waterway, and a large number of blowholes are provided at the bottom of the waterway, and an air guide pipe is provided from which air bubbles are spewed out, thereby stirring the green tea leaves. This action is solely due to air bubbles, and damage to the tea leaves due to mechanical stirring can be avoided as much as possible, and stubborn stains such as water scale and hard-to-remove stains around the base of the leaves and stems can be removed. Cleaning power is ensured.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a side view of an embodiment of a tea leaf cleaning machine equipped with front and rear equipment, Fig. 2 is a plan view of the same, Fig. 3 is a side view of the main part, Fig. 4 is a sectional view of the main part, and Fig. 5 , FIG. 6 is a sectional view of a main part of another embodiment. 1... Tea leaf cleaning machine, 2... Machine frame, 3... Water tank, 4... Belt conveyor, 8... Partition wall, 10
...Water supply port, 11...Discharge port, 19...Air guide pipe,
20... Fumarole, 21... Air pump, 22...
Piping, 41... Small diameter cylindrical brush, 45... Large diameter cylindrical brush, 46... Brush flocking sheet.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A water circulator that includes a leaf feeder with a tea leaf supply section facing the water tank, a belt conveyor whose starting end is immersed in the water of the tank, and a water circulator for generating water flow in the water tank. and an air supply system that generates air bubbles in water, wherein a water supply port is formed at the bottom of the water tank in the vicinity of the green tea leaf supply section of the leaf feeder, and the belt A discharge port is formed at the bottom of the water tank near where the starting end of the conveyor is immersed in water in the water tank, and these water supply ports and drainage ports are connected by a communicating pipe equipped with a water flow generator inside. A partition wall is provided to form a water channel between the water supply port and the drain port, a brush is provided in the water channel, a large number of blowholes are provided at the bottom of the water channel, and a conduit is connected to an air pump at one end. A bubble agitation water flow type tea leaf cleaning machine featuring a trachea. 2. The bubble agitation water flow type tea leaf washer according to claim 1, wherein the brush is provided on the inner wall of the waterway. 3. The bubble agitation water flow type tea leaf washer according to claim 1, wherein the brush is rotatably installed in the water channel. 4. The bubble agitation water jet type tea leaf washer according to claim 3, wherein the brush is a large number of small diameter cylindrical brushes protruding in a radial spiral shape at intervals in the axial direction. .