The last month has seen a great deal of activity with the new Vincent Mini-Press. This is a bench top model intended for small commercial operations, pilot plant, or laboratory work.

It is suitable for a wide range of applications: The first two units sold in California are going into (a) a laboratory for a food processing association and (b) sludge dewatering in a plastic recycling plant. In Texas two units have been rented: one for dewatering spent coffee grounds and one for dewatering a stream of sawdust and water. Successful testing has been completed on shredded coconut and pulp reject at a paper recycling plant. Furthermore, units are committed for testing in biomass digestion in New York and waste from an In-Sink-Erator at a Bronx nursing home.

(Vincent manufacturer representatives are involved in every one of these projects.)

The tiny press is of stainless steel construction and easily disassembled for clean-up or switch-over from one product to another. It is a self-contained unit, complete with motor and gear reducer, and plugs into any convenient wall outlet.

The Mini-Press comes with a wedgewire screen as a standard feature. Like its bigger brothers, it is a screw press in which a screw of progressively reducing pitch rotates inside a cylindrical screen. Material entering the hopper is subjected to gradually increasing pressure as it moves toward the exit end of the press, forcing the liquid phase to extrude through the slots of the screen. A cone at the exit end of the press applies an additional back pressure, which is adjustable. The flights of the screw are interrupted at regular intervals by resistor bars protruding into the material. These further enhance the pressing action and also prevent rotation of the material being processed.

May 1997 Update: Still going strong, although the Model KP-6 has taken over several of the applications.

VINCENT MINI-PRESS MODEL CP-4