What Is a Hydrocyclone (Cyclonic Separator)?

The R&D personnel of this cyclonic separator patent was Gavan James Joseph Prendergast; the protected user of the technology was Noel Carroll; the technology development date was January 21, 1986, the technology publication date was October 8, 1986, and the applicant for rights was Noel Carroll. [1]

According to the patent document, the ratio of the inlet cross-sectional area to the separation chamber diameter satisfies the following relationship: 0.04 < 4ai/PI*d^2 < 0.1, where ai is the cross-sectional area of the inlet pipe and d is the diameter of the separation chamber. The inlet pipe has a rectangular cross-section whose width t satisfies d/35 < t < d/6. The angle RO between the inlet pipe and the separator axis ranges over 80 < RO < 95 degrees. [1]

The cyclonic separator is provided with an inlet having inner and outer contour lines. For any point on the outer contour line determined by a vector (T), as the length of vector (T) increases, the angle between vector (T) and the tangent line to the circle passing through position (C) must never decrease, and must never be less than negative 0.1 radians; vector (U) determines the position of any point on the inner contour line, and as the length of vector (U) increases, the angle (L) between vector (U) and the tangent to the circle passing through position (E) must never decrease - at least for the actual length of vector (U), angle L must never be less than negative 0.52 radians [1].

This cyclonic separator adopts a special inlet contour design; by precisely controlling the vector angle constraint conditions of the inner and outer contour lines, a stable swirl flow field is formed in the separation chamber, thereby improving the separation efficiency of components with different densities. The inlet structure design can effectively control the liquid flow direction and reduce turbulence losses. [1]

The cyclonic separator can be widely used in petrochemical, environmental water treatment, mining and other fields for continuous separation of liquid-liquid or liquid-solid mixed systems such as oil-water mixtures and ore slurries. [1]

The cyclonic separator patented by Noel Carroll has the core function of separating the denser components in a mixed liquid from the less dense components [1].