Presses – With drain means for expressed liquid – Drainage through or along pressure surface
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-27
2001-09-18
Simone, Timothy F. (Department: 1761)
Presses
With drain means for expressed liquid
Drainage through or along pressure surface
C099S495000, C099S504000, C100S112000, C100S131000, C100S152000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06289800
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to processing citrus fruit for extraction of juice separately from fruit peel for further processing.
There are known citrus-juice extractors, but none with effective and efficient separation of juice from peel for further separate processing in a manner taught by this invention.
Examples of known related but different juice extractors are described in the following patent documents. U.S. Pat. No. 3,185,072, issued to Rickard on May 25, 1965, described a juice extractor having a perforated platform on which flat faces of halved citrus fruit were placed while domes of the halved citrus were pressed down to squeeze juice of the fruit through apertures of the perforated platform. Although efficient for getting most of the juice, it spread apart and tore the peel. This allowed high-value peel oil to escape and be squeezed into the juice with wasteful contamination. U.S. Pat. No. 3,106,152, issued to Coffelt on Oct. 8, 1963, described a continuous fruit press that was effective for crushing grapes but wasteful and contaminating for juicing citrus fruit. U.S. Pat. No. 2,575,584, issued to Cohen on Nov. 20, 1951, described projecting suction tubes into citrus fruit for sucking it out, but without high effectiveness. U.S. Pat. No. 2,247,190, issued to Edenfield on Jun. 24, 1941, described a fruit juicing machine which halved citrus fruit, placed in cut-face-down on a conveyor belt and then squeezed it from opposite sides by oppositely disposed rollers to cause juice to run vertically down out of the halved fruit. The rollers were referred to as rotatable extracting elements and pressing means. U.S. Pat. No. 1,985,323, issued to McCall on Dec. 25, 1934, described a citrus fruit juice machine having two side-by-side top conveyor belts and two side-by-side bottom conveyor belts converging in a “V” channel for conveying and crushing halved citrus fruit vertically. A vertical slitting knife between the side-by-side top and the side-by-side bottom conveyor belts halved partially squeezed citrus fruit to position fruit halves as cut for being top-to-bottom squeezed for exit of juice laterally from a progressively squeezed cut side.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Objects of patentable novelty and utility taught by this invention are to provide a citrus-juice extractor which:
does not split or crack peel;
minimize the mixing of peel oil with fruit juice; and
extracts juice from citrus fruit thoroughly.
This invention accomplishes these and other objectives with a citrus-juice extractor having two conveyor belts with vertical conveyor walls comprising opposite sides of a progressively narrowed squeeze channel. A fruit slitter at a wide end of the squeeze channel halves the citrus fruit and positions it cut-face-down on a horizontal conveyor intermediate the slitter and entrapment positioning between the vertical conveyor walls for progressively squeezing conveyance between the vertical conveyor walls while the fruit halves are in transit intermediate a terminal end of the horizontal convey and a peel receiver at a narrow terminal.
The above and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention should become even more readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following detailed description in conjunction with the drawings wherein there is shown and described illustrative embodiments of the invention.
REFERENCES:
patent: 63567 (1867-04-01), Fowler
patent: 639797 (1899-12-01), Walters et al.
patent: 1153103 (1915-09-01), Neale
patent: 1908807 (1933-05-01), Ashley
patent: 1985323 (1934-12-01), McCall
patent: 2247190 (1941-06-01), Edenfield
patent: 2367859 (1945-01-01), Fromm
patent: 2475559 (1949-07-01), Wilson
patent: 2511374 (1950-06-01), Rahrer
patent: 2552171 (1951-05-01), Hagerty
patent: 2575584 (1951-11-01), Cohen
patent: 2667118 (1954-01-01), Nelson
patent: 2723618 (1955-11-01), Matthews
patent: 3106152 (1963-10-01), Coffelt
patent: 3185072 (1965-05-01), Rickard
patent: 4705055 (1987-11-01), Rohm et al.
Hall David J.
Livingston, Esq. Edward M.
Simone Timothy F.
LandOfFree
Citrus-juice extractor does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Citrus-juice extractor, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Citrus-juice extractor will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2522757