A method of coating particles includes dispensing particles into a vacuum chamber to form a particle bed in at least a lower portion of the chamber that forms a half-cylinder, evacuating the chamber through a vacuum port in an upper portion of the chamber, rotating a paddle assembly such that a plurality of paddles orbit a drive shaft to stir the particles in the particle bed, injecting a reactant or precursor gas through a plurality of channels into the lower portion of the chamber as the paddle assembly rotates to coat the particles, and injecting the reactant or precursor gas or a purge gas through the plurality of channels at a sufficiently high velocity such that the reactant or precursor a purge gas de-agglomerates particles in the particle bed.

A mixing system for mixing a liquid includes a first impeller segment having a first mount and a first mixing blade secured to the first mount and a second impeller segment having a second mount and a first mixing blade secured to the second mount, the second impeller segment being separate and discrete from the first impeller segment. One or more drive members are secured to the first impeller segment and the second impeller segment for concurrently rotating the first impeller segment and the second impeller segment about a rotational axis. The first impeller segment and the second impeller segment are secured to the one or more drive members so that a plane extending normal to the axis of rotation intersects with the first mixing blade of the first impeller segment and the first mixing blade of the second impeller segment.

A reactor for coating particles includes a stationary vacuum chamber having a lower portion that forms a half-cylinder and an upper portion to hold a bed of particles to be coated, a vacuum port in the upper portion of the chamber, a paddle assembly, a motor to rotate a drive shaft of the paddle assembly, a chemical delivery system to deliver a first fluid, and a first gas injection assembly to receive the first fluid from the chemical delivery system and having apertures configured to inject a first reactant or precursor gas into the lower portion of the chamber and such that the first reactant or precursor gas flows substantially tangent to a curved inner surface of the half-cylinder.

A method of coating particles includes dispensing particles into a vacuum chamber to form a particle bed in at least a lower portion of the chamber that forms a half-cylinder, evacuating the chamber through a vacuum port in an upper portion of the chamber, rotating a paddle assembly such that a plurality of paddles orbit a drive shaft to stir the particles in the particle bed, injecting a reactant or precursor gas through a plurality of channels into the lower portion of the chamber as the paddle assembly rotates to coat the particles, and injecting the reactant or precursor gas or a purge gas through the plurality of channels at a sufficiently high velocity such that the reactant or precursor a purge gas de-agglomerates particles in the particle bed.

A machine used for making liquid or semi-liquid food products, specifically ice cream, comprises a container for processing liquid or semi-liquid base products by means of a stirring device driven by a motor. The stirring device comprises an external mixing structure to which a shaft is fixed so that the motor can drive it in rotation. Keyed to the shaft are scraping elements which scrape the product off the inside walls of the processing container.

A powdery material mixing and feeding device is configured to mix at least two types of powdery materials and to feed a compression-molding machine with the mixed powdery materials. The powdery material mixing and feeding device includes a first mixer configured to rotate about a substantially vertical shaft and to mix the powdery materials, and a reservoir configured to reserve at least a part of the powdery materials, and a second mixer configured to rotate about a substantially horizontal shaft and to mix the powdery materials.

Described is a stirrer of a machine for making and dispensing ice cream products, the stirrer rotating about an axis inside a mixing and cooling cylinder and comprising: a body defining a plurality of helical scraping blades extending around the axis and acting on an inside wall of the mixing and cooling cylinder to be scraped; a shaft for rotating the stirrer about the axis of rotation; a plurality of scraping members, each designed to be coupled to a blade and equipped with elastic coupling means for the blade adapted to be elastically deformed in order to allow it to be coupled to the blade.

An apparatus for the recovery of gold from a gold-bearing aqueous filtrate, the process comprising the steps of: (A) Contacting the aqueous filtrate with dibutyl carbitol (DBC) in a two-stage solvent extraction process to remove the gold from the aqueous filtrate into the DBC to form a gold-loaded DBC; and (D) Contacting the gold-loaded DBC with an aqueous acid scrub of hydrochloric acid in a four-stage countercurrent scrub process to remove impurities, e.g., non-gold metal, from the DBC into the aqueous scrub solution to form an impurity-loaded aqueous scrub. Each stage of the solvent extraction circuit and the aqueous acid scrub circuit is equipped with a mixing assembly and a phase separation tank in a head-tail arrangement such that the mixing assembly of one stage is adjacent to the phase separation tank of the adjacent stage.

A stirring blade includes a first member having a first flat surface and a second member having a second flat surface, wherein the stirring blade is rotatable about a rotational axis in a state where the first and second flat surfaces are opposed to each other and spaced by a first distance across the rotational axis. When the stirring blade is rotated about the rotational axis with the first and second flat surfaces at least partially immersed in an object to be stirred, the object to be stirred having entered between the first and second flat surfaces is discharged in a direction away from the rotational axis by a centrifugal force and, simultaneously, the object to be stirred is sucked into and between the first and second flat surfaces from a direction along the rotational axis.