Patent ID: 8545091

Claim:
In blender apparatus for blending liquids and solid particles wherein a housing has an upper solid particles inlet and a lower liquid inlet, a motive power source including a drive shaft extending into said solid particles inlet, and an outlet communicating with an annular space in said housing above said lower liquid inlet for directing slurry resulting from the intermixture of the solid particles driven outwardly by an impeller with liquids flowing into the annular space in said housing, the improvement comprising: an impeller assembly having a base plate in surrounding relation to a lower end of said particles inlet and circumferentially spaced, radially extending vanes mounted on said base plate, each of said vanes having opposite leading and trailing sides extending outwardly from an end surface adjacent to an inner radial edge of said base plate and terminating at an apex adjacent to an outer circumferential edge of said base plate; and wherein each of said leading sides of said vanes includes a circumferentially projecting portion adjacent to said end surface in the path of travel of said slurry into spaces between adjacent of said vanes to deflect said slurry in a radially outward direction into said annular space.