Apparatus for wet treatment of travelling webs

An apparatus for the continuous wet treatment of elongated materials, such as travelling textile webs and the like, particularly for washing the same, comprising:

• a substantially closed housing, having admission and discharge openings, for the passage of a web therethrough;
• a plurality of vertically, spaced-apart and horizontally-disposed liquid treatment stages, each of said treatment stages including a first dish-shaped container located on one side of the interior of said housing, for holding a hot liquid in which the web may be immersed, at least one first guide roller disposed at least partially within said container for guiding and effecting total immersion of the web in the hot liquid contained in the container, a second guide roller disposed on the other side of the interior of said housing, which cooperates with said first guide roller for guiding the web in a generally horizontal travel path across the interior space of said housing, a pair of cooperating and coacting squeeze rollers disposed generally between said first and second guide rollers and between which the web passes prior to immersion in said container of said treatment stage, so as to remove the liquid that adheres to the web after the latter has passed through the container of a preceding treatment stage, thereby separating the preceding and following partial treatments, and a second dish-shaped container disposed beneath said squeeze rollers for collecting excess treatment liquid removed by said squeezing rollers and including means for transmitting the collected excess treatment liquid to the first dish-shaped container of the preceding treatment stage therebelow, said rollers cooperating to successively guide the web generally upwardly through each of said treatment stages;
• and
• means for introducing a hot liquid to the first container of the uppermost treatment stage and for successively guiding liquid overflow from a first container onto the web in the preceding treatment stage therebelow and from said web to the first container of said preceding treatment stage.