Laminated product treating apparatus

Abstract

Laminated product treating apparatus improved to prevent falling off core material from the laminated product in the course of treating the laminated product containing the core material with steam. First and second mesh belts respectively have a plurality of first and second openings and first and second closed regions each defined between each pair of the adjacent openings. In the course of being fed and transported, the first mesh belt and the second mesh belt are relatively positioned so that the first openings are more or less out of alignment with the second openings, i.e., the second closed region overlap the first openings and thereby the second closed region partially closes the first openings.

1 . A laminated product treating apparatus having a machine direction, a cross direction being orthogonal to the machine direction, comprising first and second mesh belts arranged to sandwich a laminated product to be treated, and said first mesh belt is provided with injection means on a side opposite to a side facing said laminated product to inject steam toward said laminated product, wherein:
 said first mesh belt has a plurality of first openings and a first closed region defined between each pair of the adjacent first openings and said second mesh belt has a plurality of second openings and a second closed region defined between each pair of the adjacent second openings wherein said first openings at least partially overlap said second closed region in a region underlying the injection means.   
     
     
         2 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein the nozzles have a diameter of 0.1 to 2.0 mm and are arranged at a pitch, in the cross direction, of 0.5 to 10.0 mm. 
     
     
         3 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein the mesh belts travel at a rate of 5 to 500 m/min and the injection quantity of steam per unit surface area is 0.03 kg/m 2  to 1.23 kg/m 2 . 
     
     
         4 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein said first mesh belt and said second mesh belt have the same open area ratio. 
     
     
         5 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein said open area ratio of the belts is 10 to 85%. 
     
     
         6 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein said first mesh belt has an open area ratio smaller than an open area ratio of said second mesh belt. 
     
     
         7 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 6 , wherein the first mesh belt has an open area ratio of about 56% and the second mesh belt has an open area ratio of about 65%. 
     
     
         8 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein the openings in the first mesh belt are a different shape to the openings in the second mesh belt. 
     
     
         9 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein a plurality of said injection means are provided that are arranged to be spaced one from another in said machine direction. 
     
     
         10 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein one only of said first mesh belt and said second mesh belt comprises a plurality of endless circulating belts. 
     
     
         11 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein both of said first mesh belt and said second mesh belt comprises a plurality of endless circulating belts. 
     
     
         12 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 11 , wherein the overlaps in the region(s) underlying the injection means differ between each of the plurality of endless circulating belts. 
     
     
         13 . The laminated product treating apparatus defined by  claim 1 , wherein said second mesh belt is provided with suction means adapted to suck said steam injected from said injection means on a side opposite to a side facing said laminated product. 
     
     
         14 . A method of manufacturing a laminated product containing a liquid absorbent material using the apparatus as defined in  claim 1 . 
     
     
         15 . The method of manufacturing a laminated product defined by  claim 14 , wherein the liquid absorbent material comprises super-absorbent polymer particles and the mesh size of the second mesh belt is arranged to be smaller than the average particle diameter of the super-absorbent polymer particles.