Apparatus for continuously treating liquids, emulsions and the like

Claim 1

Apparatus for continuous processing of materials including at least one of: liquids, emulsions, suspensions, and viscous substances, by at least one of: mixing, homogenizing, gassing, degassing and polymerizing, having a plurality of essentially parallel vertical shafts (1), each having a center and axially upper and lower terminal regions, said shafts having their centers located on the circumference of a circle; means for rotating said shafts in the same direction; upper support means (3) rotatably mounting said shafts at the axially upper terminal regions thereof; lower support means (4) rotatably mounting said shafts at the axially lower terminal regions thereof; a plurality of disk-like processing elements (13, 14, 15; 37, 60) secured in axially stacked positions on said shafts for rotation therewith, said disk-like processing elements defining disk face surfaces and edge surfaces, said disk-like elements on adjacent shafts being interdigited or interengaged with each other, said interengaged processing elements, in combination with said shafts, defining a common interior chamber (16) inwardly of said circle, material supply means (47-49) extending through one of said support means for the shafts and communicating with one of the adjacent terminal regions of said shafts; and processed material removal means (40-42) extending through the other support means for the shafts and communicating with the other of the terminal regions of said shafts; wherein, said processing elements (13, 14, 15; 37, 600) define, at least over a portion of the axial length of the shafts, inner disk face surfaces and edge surfaces which extend radially, with respect to said shaft, towards each other and which are located in portions of said chamber, and outer disk surfaces and edge surfaces which extend radially outwardly of said shafts and away from said chamber, said outer disk face surfaces and edge surfaces being located in outer regions, which outer regions are located radially with respect to the shafts remote from said chamber (16); and comprising an arrangement for preventing, in operation of the apparatus and upon rotation of the processing element, the occurrence of excessive shearing stresses on the material to be processed arising adjacent said outer regions, which arrangement is characterized in that said outer regions are devoid of close confinement, and exposed to free space; and wherein in said free space no interaction effect of materials on the processing elements and supplied by said material supply means will result with any surfaces located in said regions other than said disk face surfaces and said edge surfaces of the processing elements themselves.