| abstract |
Solid lipid pellets containing 65% to 95%, or higher, lipid concentration suitable for use in or as animal food supplements and/or feed rations wherein: a mixture containing at least water and an edible algin-like coagulant is formed in a mixing chamber (11,12); a liquified lipid is added to form a gel-like algin/water/lipid emulsion; and, the emulsion is deposited in discrete quantities (30) into a metal ion bath (29) causing the emulsion to "set" in a lipid pellet integral and solid throughout its entire structure. The lipid pellets may be packaged for delivery to points of consumption and/or admixed with other feed materials to form nutritive animal feed rations. Small amounts of ammonia and/or bentonite may be added to the aqueous mixture to increase the lipid adsorptive capacity thereof. One exemplary system (10) includes: a predistributor chamber (18); distributor(s) (24,25); a positive displacement pump (22); a tank (28) containing a setting bath (29) and defining forming and firming chambers (31,32); a rotary perforate cylinder (36) having a helical flight (38) for removing firmed pellets (30); and, a setting bath recirculator (35). Modified distributors (40) include specially shaped blades (46,46') having pie-shaped blade segments (46a-46d, 46a'-46d') and complementally shaped intra-blade segment openings for forming pellets of uniform size and shape. |