Dense media separator for mineral dressing

1,000,716. Sink-float apparatus. GOSUDARSTVENNY PROEKTNO-KONSTRUKTORSKY INSTITUT. Jan. 30, 1964, No. 3959/64. Heading B2H. The bucket wheel in a sink-and-float separator comprises two annular side plates having buckets arranged between them which are each made up of a bottom plate 6, inner side constituted by a grate 7 and outer side formed by a perforated plate 8, the bottom plate having a hinged guide flap 9 which swivels under the action of its own weight so as to overlap the discharge opening of the next bucket when in the feed zone and to serve as a guide for the discharge of material from such bucket when in the discharging zone. The hinge for the flap 9 may be made of a rubber-cloth material. The material to be separated, e.g. coal, is fed by a shoot 24 into a separating tank 3 which is supplied with a dense medium as a suspension current through an inlet 25 and as a conveying suspension current 26 from the shoot 24. The floats are discharged down a trough 18 by a chain conveyer 19, the material passing over a dewatering screen 23 before passing on to a further dewatering screen. The bucket wheel is arranged to lift and discharge the sinks and is supported for rotation on rollers 14, the drive being taken from chains 16 which engage teeth provided on the annular side plates of the wheel ; as the wheel rotates the flaps swivel from the positions adjacent the plates 8 where material may enter the buckets to the positions adjacent the grates 7 to allow discharge of the material out of the separator in the direction shown by the arrow. The plates 8 are equipped with scrapers.