Abstract: Improvements in a fruit processing juice extractor in which fruit is fed by a feed wheel to conveyors having elastomer cups for holding the fruits and moving them against a stationary cutting knife to provide severed sections which are transported to rotary reamers that remove the juice and juice-bearing material from the peel sections which are subsequently ejected by ejector wheels into a peel chute for delivery to a bar grid in the chute for diverting the peel sections directly to an outlet, or to a separator for separating the juice, pulp and rag from the peel.

Abstract: An improved citrus fruit juice extractor of the type that includes interdigitating fruit cups which progressively compress a fruit as they are brought together to force juice-bearing material out of the peel of the fruit incorporates a strainer tube that has apertures of differing sizes. The apertures that are spaced from the cups are larger than those apertures that are closest to the cups. The larger apertures in the strainer tube permit substantially whole, ruptured juice sacs to be exuded therethrough at the outset of a juicing cycle without substantially comminuting the juice sacs, and the smaller apertures prevent undesirable material, such as membranes or embryonic seeds, from being forced therethrough under the higher pressures induced at the end of a juicing cycle.

Abstract: An arrangement for continuously separating fruits has a housing, a sieve element rotating in the housing and a hammer element rotating inside the sieve element, wherein the sieve element rotates with the speed which is lower than the speed of rotation of the hammer element and the relation between the speeds of rotation of the hammer element and the sieve element is within the region of between 2:1 and 4:1. A method of continuously separating fruits include withdrawing the extracted fruit juice from the inventive arrangement and supplying the same into a screw centrifuge so as to clarify the fruit juice in the latter and to produce a white wine. Red pigment of the fruit skin can be introduced into the fruit juice so as to produce a red fruit wine.

Abstract: A citrus fruit juice extractor capable of processing at least 900 fruit per minute includes a set of lower extractor cups rigidly mounted in a linear arrangement to the extractor frame and a set of movable upper extractor cups adapted to interdigitate with the lower cups to extract juice from fruit received in the lower cups. The upper cups are mounted upon separate drive rods that are respectively clamped to cam follower arms, and the follower arms are sequentially driven by cams affixed in a balanced arrangement upon a camshaft to drive the upper extractor cups in a preselected sequence. The juice extractor further includes perforated strainer tubes extending downwardly of the lower extractor cups and hollow orifice tubes slidably received within the strainer tubes. The orifice tubes are sequentially driven by hydraulic slave cylinders that, in turn, are respectively controlled by master cylinders.

Abstract: A sequential feeder for rapidly feeding fruit to a sequential citrus fruit extractor includes a plurality of chain conveyors, each conveyor being mounted in a vertical plane extending between a lane of a fruit hopper and a lower extractor cup of the extractor. Each chain conveyor includes a plurality of fingers mounted in uniform intervals thereon. A guide plate assembly is provided for each chain for having a contour which causes the chain to move upwardly from the fruit support through a broad curvature adapted to assure that the fingers maintain positive control of the fruit. The guide plate assembly has a sharply curved upper end which causes the fingers of the chain conveyor to pivot rapidly forward after a fruit has been elevated to a height above the associated lower extractor cup such rapid pivoting causes the fruit to be propelled at a high speed into the associated cup.

Abstract: Parallel horizontal toothed rolls form bights therebetween for reception of non-spherical citrus fruit such as lemons. A body of liquid submerges the toothed rolls so that puncturing of the peel of the fruit takes place below the liquid level. Groups of the toothed rolls are turned in the same direction but at progressively slower speeds. Adjacent toothed rolls are reciprocated axially in opposite directions to change the orientation of the fruit with respect to the toothed rolls. The rolls may be pushed and pulled from one side of the machine through a cam operated device or they may be pushed from both ends by mechanism on opposite sides of the machine.

Abstract: The method and apparatus for extracting oil from the peel of whole citrus fruit accumulates a plurality of rows of citrus fruit articles and then causes mass movement of said accumulation to displace a similar group of whole fruit articles being processed in troughs or pockets between power-driven parallel toothed rolls. The accumulation may be accomplished by means of a movable barrier gate near the lower end of an inclined chute on which the fruit articles accumulate.

Abstract: Device for the extraction of juices and essential oils from whole fruits, in particular from citrus fruits, wherein it comprises, in combination, a series of cylindrical elements, having a vertical axis, telescopically set with a slight radial clearance, a second series of cylindrical elements, axially aligned with the preceding one and symmetrically disposed at such an interval as to allow for the insertion of a fruit, and means to draw closer said cylindrical elements of the two series in a differentiated way, so as to cause with their edges, a progressive compressive action, substantially distributed all over the fruit surface.

Abstract: Dough is extruded from a screw extruder through a nozzle, preferably a twin-slot nozzle, and an apertured blocking plate is placed between the tip of the extrusion screw and the nozzle assembly for making the pressure distribution across the dough in a pressure equilization chamber between the blocking plate and the nozzle more uniform and for controlling the rate of flow of the dough towards the extrusion nozzle slots. The blocking plate has two series of parallel channels arranged on two opposed arcs of the same circle centered on the central axis of the nozzle (the axis of the extrusion screw) and the series are symmetrical about a plane of symmetry of the nozzle.

Abstract: A curved cup juice extractor wherein the cup is composed of two matching sections of curved interdigitating fingers which move together arcuately to enclose and squeeze the whole fruit, during which the movement and release of the cup sections is controlled by a cam and a torsional spring, and a rapid fruit feeder system works on a principle of throwing the fruit into the curved cup as the cup opens.

Abstract: An apparatus for extracting juice from citrus fruits comprising a feeding conveyor for conveying the whole fruits to a cutting device, which cuts the fruits into halves. The fruit halves are fed into a squeezing tunnel with their cut surface oriented in a predetermined direction. The squeezing tunnel consist of two opposed surfaces which converge towards one another, thus effecting the squeezing of the fruit halves which are caused to travel therealong. One of the said surfaces is a portion of a rotating drum conveyor, while the other surface comprises a plurality of consecutive parallel rotating rollers arranged transversely with respect to the direction of travel of the fruit halves, and rotating at a peripheral speed which is higher than the speed of the drum conveyor. The rotating rollers are screw threaded with alternating right and left screw threads, or each rotating roller is provided with contiguous right and left screw threaded portions.

Abstract: Pairs of toothed rolls form bights or troughs for reception of whole lemons or other citrus fruit. The rolls turn in the same direction, one roll of each pair turning at higher speed. An axially extending bar moves in an orbit above the faster roll of each pair to contact the fruit intermittently to move it out of the bight between the rolls and into contact with a stationary inclined wall adjacent the slower of the rolls. The motion of the bar moves the fruit axially along the wall to re-enter the bight at an axially spaced location. A pool of water submerges the toothed rolls so that the sharp teeth on the peripheries of the rolls puncture the oil cells in the peel of the fruit to release the oil into the water without seriously damaging the fruit. A single oscillating mechanism provides orbital movement for two parallel bars, each bar cooperating with a pair of toothed rolls.

Abstract: A metal roll is provided with a series of sharp circular fins extending around its periphery, in the form of separate circular fins separated by shallow angular grooves. The grooved roll, in cooperation with a ribbed roll, pulls citrus peel through a shaving knife which separates the albedo from the flavedo before the latter passes between a bite formed between the grooved roll and a cooperating roller. A stationary wiper formed of ultra high molecular weight polyethylene engages the peripheral fins to scrape off flavedo and peel oil liquor which adheres to them.