Powder reclamation device for electrostatic powder coating systems

Claim 1

A device for reclaiming powders, particularly for electrostatic powder coating systems, comprising, in combination: a hollow housing having a top and bottom portion; a filter means mounted in said housing between said top and bottom portion for filtering air passing therethrough and having filter layers defining vertically extending passage openings, said filter layers being wave-like and aligned in a first direction parallel to each other; partition walls mounted in said housing adjacent to said filter means, for defining suction intake chamber means communicative with an inlet connection on said housing top portion for introducing the powder-laden air to be processed, as well as defining three channels adjacent to said filter compartments, and channel means passing alongside said suction chamber means; said filter means and said filter layers defining three respective filter sections, each aligned with an adjacent one of said channels; said suction intake chamber means including three adjacent, downwardly opening compartments, each communicative with a respective one of said three channels, the latter being adjacent, and directed downwardly in said channel means and for dividing the processed air; said housing bottom portion being funnel-shaped and comunicating with said filter means and said channels, and including an outlet opening for the powder recovered from the processed air; said partition walls including a baffle plate transversely disposed at a bottom portion of said partition walls to constrict the cross-section of said channels, respectively, just above said housing bottom portion; an exhaust chamber communicating with said housing top portion and communicating downstream with said filter means; damper means for controlling the flow of air to said suction intake chamber means, including individually adjustable dampers disposed in each of said channels; compressed-air nozzle means mounted in said housing adjacent to said filter means at the top thereof and including three oblong chambers extending across the tops of the three filter sections, respectively, parallel to said filter layers, and nozzle-type openings linearly aligned in a bottom portion of said oblong chambers, downwardly directed at said filter layers, said oblong chambers being transversely movably mounted across the tops of said filter layers relative to said parallel orientation of said filter layers and further comprising means for selectively applying compressed air to, and connected to, said three oblong chambers, respectively, independently of each other, and wherein said oblong chambers sweep across each of said three filter sections; and means for simultaneously continuously operating said exhaust chamber to reclaim the powder from the processed air passing through at least one of said channels.