Plant material processing system
AssigneeDurafibre Inc.
InventorsPhilip J. Leduc, Leslie G. Hill, David H. Kelly, Mark A. Stratton
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for processing plant material is provided which separates plant fibers from the woody portions of the material to produce a commercially desirable length of fiber and to grind the shorter woody portions that have been separated from the longer fibers to a desirable size which has found use in certain commercial applications. The current system is well suited to process the tough fibers of the North American strain of flax straw, and will also find utility in processing other bast fibers, such as jute, hemp, ramie, and kenaf.
Claims7
A system for processing plant material, the system comprising:
- a plurality of plant material processing sections to which the plant material is subjected for separating woody portions from fibers of the plant material and for reducing the size of the separated woody portions, the processing sections including:
- (a) a stripping section which exerts a pulling action on the plant material to strip woody portions of the plant material from the plant fibers to minimize damage to and shortening of the fibers;
- (b) a cleaning section for separating the majority of the remaining of the associated woody portions from the plant fibers by scraping of the plant material to minimize damage to and shortening of the fibers;
- and
- (c) a downstream grinding section which receives woody portions that have been separated from the plant fibers and which rapidly beats and grinds the woody portions to a predetermined substantially smaller size when compared to the separated woody portions received from the stripping and cleaning sections.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.