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Exhaust Air
Drying Duct
Wet Cake In
Product Outlet
• Proprietary design of disintegrator ensures uniform mixing of wet cake and hot air
giving consistent and homogeneous powder quality.
• Fully Automatic – needs little running attention.
• Large filtering area of Bag filter – reduced pressure drop – large savings in power
consumption of blower.
APPLICATIONS:
Our Flash Dryer is a versatile machine and ideal for wet / pasty press cakes. We list
below industries where it can be used.
Fertilizers
Technical Ceramics
Food Industry
Pharmaceutical Industry
Agricultural extracts
TYPICAL PRODUCT LIST OF FLASH DRYER APPLICATIONS
Flash dryer is a continuous drying plant used for drying variety of wet cakes by
disintegrating wet cake into fine powder and dried by hot air to form powder. The whole
process is fully automatic requiring no handling or human involvement. The feed rate is
adjusted automatically as per the variation in moisture content in wet cake thereby
achieving consistent product quality.
The air velocities are similar to that of pneumatic conveying. The powder remains
suspended in air and gets conveyed while drying. Hence it is also called as pneumatic
dryer. The retention of a given solids particles in the system is very short, typically in
seconds.
These make it ideal for drying heat sensitive, easily oxidized, materials that cannot be
exposed to process conditions for extended periods.
• Wet cake is fed in feed mechanism. The feed mechanism consists of balance
tank, stirrer and screw feeder.
• The stirrer feeds the screw feeder. The screw feeder gives controlled feed at
rated capacity to disintegrator.
• The air after passing through Air Filter is heated in Oil fired hot air generator or
steam / thermic fluid based radiator.
• Hot air and wet cake get thoroughly mixed in the cage mill type disintegrator.
Disintegration and drying of wet cake takes place in disintegrator.
• Wet cake is rapidly dried and about 50% drying take place in the disintegrator.
• Drying duct conveys the pulverized material to cyclone. Drying gets completed in
conveying duct.
• The time taken by disintegrated powder to travel through drying duct is called
residence time of drying.
• The material looses moisture that is absorbed by hot air. The temperature of air
reduces while its humidity increases.
• Powder is further dried in cyclone. Separation of dried powder and air takes
place in cyclone. Powder is discharged from cyclone through powder discharge
valves.
• Fine particles escaped from cyclone are conveyed to bag filter.
• Bag filter recovers the fine particles. The air coming out of bag filter is dust free
and confirms to pollution control norms.
• Two blowers, one at inlet & other at outlet, working on Push-Pull principle
maintain the airflow in the system.
• Push-Pull principle ensures that the ambient pressure is maintained at feeding
system to avoid dusting of material. Also it avoids extreme pressures (either
positive or negative) in the system.
• The powder collected from cyclone and bag filter can be pneumatically conveyed
to storage bin or bagging section.
MAIN COMPONENTS OF FLASH DRYER
1. Feeding Mechanism:
The Feeding Mechanism feeds the wet cake steadily in metered quantity. The entire
feeding mechanism as depicted in figure 2 it consists of following-
• Balance Tank
The Balance Tank holds the wet cake and acts as a buffer tank.
• Stirrer
Many materials are sticky / pasty having tendency of forming bridge if not kept
agitated. Stirrer has special contour to keep the material agitated and force
the wet cake positively on screw feeder. This guarantees continuous flow of
wet cake to dryer as shown in Figure 3.
It homogenizes the wet cake and increases uniformity of constituents in dry
powder.
Stirrer speed and blades are designed to suit wet cake properties.
The agitation increases the flowability of wet cake. This reduces the power
required for screw feeder to push the material.
• Screw Feeder
The screw feeder has pipe type construction with minimum gaps between
screw and pipe. This ensures that there is no void space for material
accumulation and material move ahead positively as shown in Figure 4.
The screw feeder remains clean avoiding drying of material in voids. This
avoids charring of material in screw feeder due to hot air and subsequent
contamination of dried product.
Angular contact bearings are used to reduce friction, wear & tear, thereby
increasing life and reducing power requirement. Further, it eliminates need of
thrust bearing making the assembly compact.
• Distributor
The material is discharged from screw feeder on rotating cage of
disintegrator. If the pigment is very pasty / sticky the material falls as a lump
on disintegrator rotating cage. The disintegrator will not be able to disintegrate
this lump fast, and layer of wet cake will form on disintegrator cages and
subsequently chock it. To avoid this, distributor is provided to distribute the
material and feed it in small nodule shapes. Figure 5 further explains the
distributor function.
2. Cage Mill Disintegrator
It consists of alternate rotating and stationary cages. The cages have close
pitched, large number of rods.
The material and hot air are fed at center of rotating cage.
It instantaneously disintegrates wet lump in fine agglomerates exposing very high
surface area for drying.
Presence of highly turbulent hot air and intimate mixing of hot air with finely
divided agglomerates results reduction of moisture very rapidly. The material
looses its stickiness.
Also strong centrifugal force totally prevents the material from sticking to the
rods.
The mixture of hot air and agglomerates move with high turbulence to the
stationary cage. The agglomerates hit the rods of stationary cage with very high
velocities and further disintegrate exposing their core to rapid drying.
Hitting agglomerates dislodge any agglomerate sticking to stationary rods.
The mixture of hot air and agglomerates undergo similar severe action of
disintegration and drying in subsequent rotating and stationary cages.
At the outlet of last rotating cage material is substantially dried and about 70%
moisture is evaporated.
Both the material and hot air move in radial outward direction. This avoids back
mixing of semi-dry material with fresh material.
The hot air and material moves co-current. The hottest air comes in contact with
material having highest moisture. This avoids charring of material.
These make it possible to use high inlet temperature of air making the plant
energy efficient. Further it makes the plant size small reducing the capital cost of
equipment, civil cost and so on.
The rotating cages are dynamically balanced as per IS 1940 for smooth vibration
free performance.
The disintegration action depend upon rod gaps and impeller speed. To obtain
powders of various mesh sizes and thus to increase flexibility of operation, the
speed of disintegrator can be changed by variable speed drive or by changing
pulleys if made belt driven.
To avoid dusting of powder from gap between shaft and casing, air sealing is
provided.
The bearing block is robust, fabricated single piece assembly with single setting
machining. This ensures prolong life of bearings avoiding maintenance and
production loss.
Cleaning windows are provided on casing that facilitates washing of disintegrator
reducing down time.
Combination of cage mill disintegrator with secondary disintegrator make the plant
ideal for fine powder applications in organic / inorganic pigments and dyestuff.
Blowers are designed for the required duty point. This reduces the power
requirement of blower.
The blowers have high efficiency up to 80%.
The blowers are tested for following parameters-
- Performance
- Vibrations as per IS 1940.
- Rise in bearing temperature.
This increases the reliability of blowers reducing maintenance and down time of
dryer.
The bearing block is robust, fabricated single piece assembly with single setting
machining. This ensures prolong life of bearings avoiding maintenance and
production loss.
Access door for inspection / cleaning facilitates maintenance / washing.
Drain plug is provided for removal of condensate while the blower is running.
This avoids plant stoppage increasing productivity.
The flow rate of air is an important parameter for proper drying. To control the
quantity of air, damper is provided at outlet of blower.
To monitor the performance of blower and in turn that of dryer; manometer
tappings at inlet and outlet are provided.
The blowers are either belt driven or direct driven depending upon blower size
and customer requirements.
Guard is provided at air inlet and on belt to make the installation safe.
The blower is mounted on rigid base frame and supports for vibration free
performance.
The drying cum conveying duct provides necessary residence time for particulate to
dry. Moist, disintegrated material from disintegrator enters the duct at one end while
dried powder is discharged into cyclone at other end as depicted in figure 1.
- To reduce pressure drop in the system thereby saving power required for
blower
- To avoid settling of powder as depicted in figure 7. On smooth surface
powder does not get deposited easily than that on a rough surface. For heat
sensitive materials this is very important as deposited material gets charred
with time.
Horizontal run of drying duct is averted to avoid settling of powder as depicted in
figure 7.
The drying duct also functions as conveying duct. The air velocities are similar to
that for pneumatic conveying. This ensures that powder get conveyed properly
without chocking the duct. Dryer runs continuously at rated capacity.
Manholes / hand holes are provided for ease of cleaning reducing cleaning and
down time of machine.
5. Control Panel & Instrumentation
The dryer is supplied along with a factory pre-wired and tested control panel through
which the entire dryer can be operated in automatic as well as manual mode. The
control panel has following instruments:
• All motors have starters, overload protection relays and necessary fuses / circuit
breakers.
• Digital temperature indicators and controllers for air are provided at various
points in the air circuit to indicate drying condition in the plant.
• Hot air generator burner is provided with its starter sequence programmer, flame
monitoring and failure safety instruments.
• A variable speed drive is provided for material screw feeder that automatically
adjusts feeding rate whenever moisture in feed material varies. This is done by a
PID temperature controller which senses outlet air temperature at inlet of cyclone
and gives signal to variable speed drive controller for increasing or decreasing
the feed rate so that set outlet temperature of air is maintained.
The control panel is provided with various indicating lamps and rotary switches for
convenient operation and trouble shooting. Voltmeter and Ammeter are provided on
panel for monitoring proper electrical supply conditions.
OTHER COMPONENTS OF FLASH DRYER
1. AIR FILTER
• Air filter – HDPE, 3ply of sufficient area for minimum pressure drop.
• Flanged type construction for ease of removal for cleaning.
• Material selected for filter is water washable.
• Manometer is provided on filter for checking of blockage.
Hot air generator is designed and manufactured Transparent Energy Systems Pvt.
Ltd. and have High Thermal efficiency of 93% on NCV & 87% on GCV that gives
large saving in fuel cost.
3. CYCLONE
• Optimally sized for the desired airflow rate.
• Low pressure drop.
• Settling vessel is provided to have highest powder separation efficiency.
• Cleaning window is provided with hinged door.
• Air purging system is provided to prevent bridging.
4. SECONDARY DISINTEGRATOR.
• Secondary disintegrator is provided on-line for further disintegrating the dried
powder.
• It is belt driven to adjust the speed, which will control the powder fineness.
• It is an add-on type assembly. Hence can be used whenever required.
5. BAG FILTER
• Large filtering area of Bag filter – reduced pressure drop – large savings in power
consumption of blower.
• Anti-stick coat on bags – reduced chocking.
• Low CAN velocity – low powder entrainment – reduce chocking.
• Bustle type construction – low powder entrainment – reduced chocking.
• Automatic air pulse jet system – clean filter bags on-line.
• Designed, manufactured & tested for
- Material.
- Airflow rate.
- Pressure drop at no dusting.
- Workmanship.
• Bag removal from top – maintenance in dust free atmosphere.
• Full SS construction (even on exhaust side).
• Bottom cone angle of drying chamber is 45° - powder slides.
• Air bleeding system linked with air temperature at inlet to bag filter for protecting the
bags.
We ensure lowest drying cost by designing and manufacturing energy efficient Flash
Drying Plant. Our Flash Drying plant is highly Energy Efficient due to following-
• Fuel cost is dominant in drying cost. We use 93% efficient Hot Air Generator
manufactured by our associate company. This reduces the fuel consumption
thereby reducing drying cost.
• The unique cage mill disintegrator with feeding system allows high inlet air
temperature without charring the material. This increases the thermal efficiency
of dryer decreasing drying cost.
• The use of high inlet air temperature reduces the plant size thereby reducing the
capital and civil cost.
• The individual components and sub-assemblies are tested as per “Quality
Assurance Plan” and then send to site. This reduces possibility of malfunction of
components and sub-assemblies thereby reducing downtime of Plant. Typical
Quality Assurance Plan is enclosed for reference.
• We use high efficiency blowers having efficiency up to 80%. This reduces power
consumption and drying cost.
• We design and select following components for low air pressure drops-
a. Air filter.
b. Cage Mill Disintegrator.
c. Duct and bends.
d. Cyclone.
e. Bag filter.
f. Hot air generator.
Reduced pressure drop reduces the total head requirement for the blower. This
reduces the electrical power consumption of the blowers thereby reducing drying
cost.
• Provision of on-line secondary disintegrator eliminates the need of separate
pulverizer. This eliminates wastage of material and manpower required for
intermediate handling. This increases production and reduces drying cost.
• The plant is fully automatic requiring minimum manpower.
• On-line cleaning system like pulse-jet for filter bags cleaning and knockers
minimize the down time. This increases productivity reducing drying cost.
There are many minute aspects to reduce the power consumption, increase
production yield, and reduce down time. These aspects are explained in detail under
the head – “Main Components of Flash Dryer” and “Other Components of Flash
Dryer”.
HOW TRANSPARENT FLASH DRYING PLANT IS EASY TO OPERATE AND
DIAGNOSE PROBLEMS
Easy to Operate
The wet cake of pigments are generally pasty and sticky, hence are very difficult to
handle in conventional dryers. Moreover, the tone of pigment is very important
parameter along with its particulate size. The powder size varies, as per its application
viz. very fine powder (even upto 500 mesh) is required for paint industry. The dryer
should be capable of producing these different sized powders easily. In addition to the
above heat sensitive nature of pigments makes the drying process a challenging task.
We have designed, developed, and successfully commissioned flash dryers for variety
of applications. Repeat orders from our customers are the testimony to our capabilities.
Following has contributed to our success-
The feeding mechanism is critical component for proper working of Flash Dryer.
Following care is taken while designing the feeding system.
⇒ Stirrer is provided in feed tank for following reasons as depicted in figure 3
- It keeps the material in agitated condition avoiding bridge formation.
- It positively pushes material in screw conveyor to fill it completely.
- It homogenizes the wet cake and increases its flowability.
⇒ Screw feeder has pipe type construction to move the material ahead positively. A
‘U’ trough screw feeder is not able to convey the wet cake ahead due to pasty /
sticky nature of wet cake.
⇒ A minimum gap between screw and pipe minimizes dead volume. This avoids
dead volume of material. If material accumulates in dead volume, it will get
charred due to hot air and damage the tone of pigment.
⇒ If the pigment is very pasty / sticky the material falls as a lump on disintegrator
rotating cage. The disintegrator will not be able to disintegrate this lump fast, and
layer of wet cake will form on disintegrator cages and subsequently chock it. To
avoid this, distributor is provided to distribute the material and feed it in small
nodule shapes. This improves particle size, final moisture and tone of pigment.
The cage mill disintegrator is critical component for proper working of Flash Dryer.
Following care is taken while designing the cage mill disintegrator.
⇒ As depicted in figure 6 the material and hot air move in radial outward direction
avoiding back mixing of semi-dried material with fresh material. This avoids
degradation and retains colour tone.
⇒ The hot air and material moves co-current. The hottest air comes in contact with
material having highest moisture. This avoids charring of material and maintains
colour tone.
⇒ The gaps between rods of rotating and stationary cages are designed as per the
product characteristics.
⇒ The rotational speed of disintegrator is adjusted to achieve the desired powder
fineness. Higher the speed finer the powder.
⇒ To achieve required residence time and airflow passages, the cage mill
disintegrator size required is bigger than that required for non-sticky / non-pasty
wet cakes.
On-line secondary disintegrator is provided to achieve required powder size. The
secondary disintegrator is belt driven to adjust the speed of rotation thereby
changing disintegration level.
FLASH DRYER FOR PHARMACEUTICAL PRODUCTS MEETING GMP
The wet cake of pharmaceutical products are generally moderately sticky / pasty.
Generally the wet cakes are very heat sensitive and degrade even at 100°C. The
process air required should be contamination free. The whole plant especially feeding
area and powder collection area should be enclosed. In pharmaceutical industry, each
batch is to be processed separately to meet tracability requirements. No intermixing of
batches is allowed. Fulfilling the above requirements at high production level
economically is a challenging task.
We have designed, developed and successfully commissioned flash dryers for variety of
applications. Repeat orders from our customers are the testimony to our capabilities.
Following has contributed to our success-
To avoid contamination all components should be rusting free, hence are made of
stainless steel. Following items are fabricated in stainless steel-
⇒ Stool & base frame for disintegrators.
⇒ Frame for feed tank.
⇒ Rail & trolley arrangement for the feed system.
⇒ Belt drive consisting of bearing & pulleys is replaced with drive. To adjust the
speed, frequency inverter is incorporated.
⇒ All stiffener sections.
All supports and components are in circular shapes (wherever possible) instead of
flat surfaces to avoid dust settling and corresponding contamination.
The process is cleaned using HEPA filter to remove particles upto 5 microns.
The feeding mechanism is critical component for proper working of Flash Dryer.
Following care is taken while designing the feeding system.
⇒ Stirrer is provided in feed tank for sticky / pasty wet cakes for following reasons
as depicted in figure 3
- It keeps the material in agitated condition avoiding bridge formation.
- It positively pushes material in screw conveyor to fill it completely.
- It homogenizes the wet cake and increases its flowability.
⇒ Screw feeder has pipe type construction to move the material ahead positively. A
U trough screw feeder is not able to convey the wet cake ahead due to pasty /
sticky nature of wet cake. Figure 4 explains this pictorially.
⇒ A minimum gap between screw and pipe minimizes dead volume. This avoids
dead volume of material. If material accumulates in dead volume, it will get
charred due to hot air and damage the final product. This dead volume will also
cause intermixing of two batches, which is not allowed.
The cage mill disintegrator is critical component for proper working of Flash Dryer.
Following care is taken while designing the cage mill disintegrator.
⇒ As depicted in figure 6 the material and hot air move in radial outward direction
avoiding back mixing of semi-dried material with fresh material. This avoids
degradation of product.
⇒ The hot air and material moves co-current. The hottest air comes in contact with
material having highest moisture. This avoids charring / melting of material.
⇒ The gaps between rods of rotating and stationary cages are designed as per the
product characteristics.
On-line secondary disintegrator can be provided to achieve fine powder size.
Horizontal construction facilitates easy flow of feed powder avoiding need of special
feeding arrangement.
COMPARISON BETWEEN TRAY DRYER & TRANSPARENT FLASH DRYER