Apparatus for coating bulk material
AssigneeI.M.A. Industria Automatiche S.p.A.
InventorsNicola Gandolfi, Gjergj Darragjati
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Abstract
A coating apparatus and method are disclosed for coating tablets with a film, in which the tables transit through a drilled first container where they are coated, then exit the first container and are removed from a rotating element provided on the periphery of a plurality of removal members that are spaced angularly apart from one another, in which each removal member removes a quantity of tablets, raises the removed tables as far as a certain height and then discharges the tablets into a chute that conveys the tablets into a second rotating drilled container, with delicate transfer of the coated tablets from one container to the next.
Claims12
A coating apparatus, comprising:
- a tubular rotating first container arranged to receive and discharge a bulk material and configured to rotate about a first rotation axis in such a way as to promote moving of the bulk material within said tubular rotating first container
- a first dispensing device configured for dispensing a first coating material on the bulk material in said tubular rotating first container;
- a tubular rotating second container arranged to receive the bulk material coming from said tubular rotating first container and configured to rotate in such a way as to promote moving of the bulk material within said tubular rotating second container;
- and
- a conveyor arranged between the tubular rotating first container and the tubular rotating second container and configured to convey the bulk material from said tubular rotating first container towards said tubular rotating second container;
- wherein said conveyor is configured to gather at a first position the bulk material coming from said tubular rotating first container, raise the bulk material which has been gathered to a second position, which is higher than the first position, and discharging the bulk material from said second position towards said tubular rotating second container, and wherein said conveyor comprises at least one rotating element which rotates about a second rotation axis, the rotation of the at least one rotating element being independently controllable with respect to the rotation of the tubular rotating first container wherein said conveyor comprises at least one rotating element which rotates about a second rotation axis, the rotation of the at least one rotating element being independently controllable with respect to the rotation of the tubular rotating first container, and wherein said conveyor comprises at least one removal portion that is movable along a closed loop advancing path through the first position, where the bulk material is gathered, and the second position, where the bulk material is discharged from the tubular rotating first container.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.