Lint collecting system and apparatus

Abstract

A central vacuum or air cleaning system handling fibrous materials such as spilled cotton waste in a cotton gin or lint in a textile mill, chaff in grain handling and/or wood dust and dirt in lumber industries and other air contaminating industrial processes. Dirt and lint laden air is drawn into a bin structure with a drum filter or condenser at the top that rotates through an area in operational contact with doffer rolls that remove drum filter deposited lint and dirt to fall down a still chamber provided with an internal plate or baffle extending downwardly from the tower doffer roll a substantial distance approximating one-half the vertical length of the bin. This eliminates pressure differential across the critical area of the doffer rolls that is encountered with filter drum and doffer roll structure delivering deposited lint and dirt waste directly to the exterior. The lint and dirt waste is removed from the bottom of the bin via a rotary air lock, air seal type screw conveyor and/or air plug structure. The interior of the drum filter is exhausted through air piping to a suction fan that, operating on the clean side of the filtering system, permits use of high efficiency fans yielding significant energy savings along with decreased maintenance requirements.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.