Size does matter!
Historically Hosokawa Micron B.V. have supplied a lot of vacuum dryers that are used in the pharmaceutical industry. In this industry, industrial batch sizes are typically 1000 – 6000 liters. Due to more stringent requirements in the chemical industry, for example lower critical temperatures and lower end moistures, it is becoming more and more important to be able to dry at low temperatures and deep vacuum levels.
Chemical products like polymers, pigments, chemically produced toners and agro chemicals are being produced in large quantities and capacities.
Products which need to be dried under vacuum conditions are often heat sensitive, which means that hot spots or local heat input should be avoided. Therefore bearings or bottom supports in the dryer are not allowed. As it can be imagined this should also be avoided at any time for the pharmaceutical industry.
As a result of on- going developments in the drive construction, not only for mixers but also for dryers, Hosokawa Micron is able to fabricate large vacuum dryers which are cantilevered (screw not supported in the bottom of the vessel), still keeping the flexibility of the Vrieco Nauta® vacuum dryer in drying slurry’s, paste’s and powders to a low end moisture. The largest cantilevered vacuum dryer built so far is a 22m3 Vrieco Nauta® vacuum dryer which is used for drying of polymers.
