Solidaire®

The Solidaire® Drying System features a jacketed cylinder with a high-speed paddle rotor that creates a highly agitated, dense, thin layer of material against the jacketed vessel wall. This results in unsurpassed heat transfer coefficients. This dryer's adjustable paddles can convey materials with poor flowability, as well as adapt to variations in the conveyance of materials whose flow characteristics change during drying. Material residence times range from under one minute to about 15 minutes.

The Solidaire® Drying System also processes heat-sensitive materials ranging from free-flowing solids to wet cakes and slurries. Superior gas contact results in material temperatures at the wet bulb temperature during constant rate drying, eliminating the need for vacuum. This process of the Solidaire® Drying System is also ideally suited to low density, fine particles that might otherwise be fluidized in mechanically or pneumatically agitated equipment.

The Solidaire® Drying System has three operating modes:

1. Indirect heat transfer, where heat is conducted through the cylindrical housing. This thermal processing method is well suited to solvent evaporation processes where a small counter-current flow of an inert sweep gas increases the rate of mass transfer.

2. Direct heat transfer, another thermal processing method, in which heat is transferred by convection using a large volume of gas. Direct heat transfer is applied using a co-current flow of material and gas. The two components are separated downstream in a cyclone or bag filter.

3. A combination, of indirect and direct heat transfer can be used to optimize energy efficiency while also reducing the material temperature.

For food applications, the Solidaire® Drying System's patented jet rotor design allows injection of a gas or liquid through the paddles into the thin layer of material flowing in a spiral along the cylindrical wall of the unit. This ability to inject at the optimum location for the material temperature and the volatile can benefit product quality. The design is often used for cooking, reacting, or sterilizing.

SYSTEM #1

SYSTEM #2