sedimentator

From sedimentat(ion) +‎ -or.^[1]

sedimentator (plural sedimentators)

1. Any device for separating sediments from liquids, such as a centrifuge.
   • 1976, United States. Office of International Marketing, Air and Water Purification and Pollution Control Equipment, page 115:

     The sewage is pretreated mechanically before proceeding to a sedimentator with a sprinkling system and a sludge collection hopper connected to an aeration tank.

   • 2003, F. Kongoli, Metallurgical and Materials Processing, page 339:

     The excesses of iron and sulfur can be removed from the sedimentator as a non-toxic sediment after the second stage.

   • 2005, S. N. Kaul, Wastewater Management: With Special Reference to Tanneries, page 50:

     The liquid is then pumped into the hydrodynamic sedimentator.

   • 2021, Marcel Van de Voorde, Hydrogen Production and Energy Transition:

     The liquid current discharged from the sedimentator consists mainly of the water produced during the quench phase and those resulting from acid washing.

2. (zoology) An organism that feeds on bacteria or small algae that are found in sediments.
   • 1997, The Biogeography of the Oceans, page 468:

     In addition, by analogy with shallow-water suspension-feeders of corresponding groups, filtering sponges and bivalve molluscs (Limopsidae and Mytilidae) and sedimentors such as serpulomorph polychaetes, Bryozoa and most likely crinoids can be included among triptonovores.

   • 2012, Birger Pejiler, “Zooplanktic indicators of trophy and their food”, in C. Forsberg, J.A. Johansson, editors, Forest Water Ecosystems:

     The survivors in hypertrophic lakes thus mostly consist of hig-efficiency bacteria feeders and of raptors, which also seems to be in accordances with Patalas (1954), (Pejler (1965) and Andersson et al. (1975). This can be achieved partly by a change in species composition, partly by changing proportions in the diet, implying that a greater fraction will consist of bacteria for the sedimentators and microfiltrators.

   • 2012, Henri J. Dumont, J. Green, Rotatoria, page 61:

     Excessive growth of blue-green algae inhibits the development of most sedimentators by eliminating most of the small algae which are the basic food of the phytophagous sedimentators (Edmondson, 1965; Pourriot, 1965; Dumont, 1977).

• American Illustrated Medical Dictionary (1919).
• A Practical Medical Dictionary (Stedman, 1922).