Patent ID: 7350318

Claim:
A device for continuous thermal treatment of granular bulk material (granulate), comprising: a product inlet terminating in a chamber being the first chamber disposed upstream; a product outlet following a last chamber being disposed downstream; and several adjacent fluidization chambers with a separate sieve bottom each through which, via a gas inlet, a fluidization gas can be injected into a respective chamber to fluidize the granulate, such gas can exit via a gas outlet disposed in a roof area of the device, and the first chamber occupies a large part of a total volume of all chambers, and wherein adjacent chambers have a fluid connection by means of product passages in separating walls that are disposed between them; and wherein each product passage that is disposed on the bottom side or roughly at a height of an upper end of a fluidized layer in the separating wall and/or each product passage that is disposed on a wall side includes a metal sheet which runs roughly parallel to the sieve bottom and/or respective side wall and which runs roughly perpendicular to the separating wall, wherein the metal sheet is secured on an edge of a respective product passage and extends, through the product passage, on both sides of such separating wall into the two adjacent chambers.