Fish-meal Equipment

apparatus used to make nutritive meal and commercial oil from fish and fish-cleaning wastes. The raw material is first chopped in a fish chopper and then treated in a small horizontal steam-jacketed cylindrical cooker. Then, by means of a horizontal screw press, the excess moisture is squeezed out and the solid is loosened and dried in a horizontal drum. The evaporating moisture is sucked out of the drum by a fan. The liquid squeezed out by the press, which contains the oil that separates from the fish during boiling, is cleansed of suspended protein particles by a horizontal centrifuge or vibrating sieve. The particles of protein are dried along with the raw material. The oil is removed from the purified liquid in a separator, and the remaining liquid is thickened in evaporation apparatus and passes into the drying drum. Specially generated hot gases may be used instead of steam as the heat carrier. All processes at a fish-meal plant are continuous and take place in hermetically sealed apparatus connected by continuous transport. Fish-meal equipment is installed on industrial fishing ships and in onshore plants.