Patent ID: 7494016

Claim:
A pneumatic flotation column, comprising a cylindrical housing consisting of the widened upper part having a diameter D and a height h 1 and of the lower part having a diameter d and a height h 2 , a feed, aeration and discharge device and a foam collecting container, wherein the diameter D of the widened upper part of the cylindrical housing corresponds to the following equation: D =√{square root over ( k 1 ·d ·( h 1 +h 2 ))} in which: D is the diameter of the widened upper part of the cylindrical housing [m]; k 1 is the empirical coefficient for calculating the diameter of the widened upper part of the cylindrical housing, selected from 1.0 to 1.4; h 1 is the height of the widened upper part of the housing, equal to h 1 =k 2 ·h 2 [m]; k 2 is the empirical coefficient for calculating the height of the widened upper part of the cylindrical housing, selected from 0.2 to 1.0; h 2 is the height of the lower part of the cylindrical housing [m]; d is the diameter of the lower part of the cylindrical housing, which is dependent on the required machine performance in terms of the feed material according to the equation d 2 =k 3 ·Q [m]; Q is the required machine performance in terms of the feed material [t/h]; k 3 is the empirical coefficient for calculating the diameter of the lower part of the cylindrical housing, selected from 0.015 to 0.03 [m 2 h/t].