Patent ID: 8070078

Claim:
An apparatus for crushing material comprising: an upstream pair of crushing rolls intermittently rotating and defining a nip therebetween for receiving feed material and crushing the feed material to a first particle size range and for forcing crushed material from the nip; a downstream pair of crushing rolls having a nip therebetween for receiving crushed material from the upstream pair of rolls and crushing the feed material further to a second particle size range; a transfer chute extending between the upstream and downstream pairs of rolls and confining crushed material from the upstream pair of rolls to move to the downstream pair of rolls as a packed bed of material, wherein, in use of the apparatus, crushed material from the upstream pair of rolls forms the packed bed of material as it moves through the transfer chute to the downstream pair of rolls and forms a feed for the downstream pair of rolls; and means for exposing crushed material flowing between upstream and downstream pairs of rolls to microwave energy for physically and/or chemically altering the crushed material.