What is Spray Drying?
Spray drying applications is a well-known technique for producing particles from liquid material, taking advantage of a gaseous hot drying medium. Spray drying is also utilized to dry thermosensitive liquids, suspensions, and thick liquids as well as fuels, intermediates, and even soap powder.
Industrial Processing and Efficiency
Spray drying applications is an industrial technique that involves spraying the product with a pressurized stream of liquid. Spray nozzle technology, as it exists today, has several drawbacks that limit production performance. These include low-quality powder and powder consistency, bearding (when small particles cling to one another), substandard hygiene, maintenance wear and tear, and safety concerns. Spray dryers are frequently used in the food sector for milk powder, coffee, tea, starch and starch derivatives, and certain cereals and spices.
In the completion stages of antibiotics, the pharmaceutical industry mostly employs spray drying methods. Spray drying applications is also used on ceramic materials and catalyst supports in industrial areas.
Challenges With Spray Drying Applications Equipment
Between more significant repairs, food process businesses don’t want to shut down for long, so they benefit from a knowledgeable service partner (like us!) to maintain their burners in good working order and repair them promptly.
Maintaining Spray Drying Burners
Burners for spray drying applications are considered “consumable” in that their performance degrades within a few years, necessitating a significant overhaul. For example, the popular MAXON CROSSFIRE® Low NOx burners comply with the world’s strictest air quality standards for NOx and CO by cleanly combusting gaseous fuels. They are widely used in the food industry.
A Glass 3/4 Full
According to research, spray dryers have an overall heat efficiency of 25% to 60%, and some can be as low as 20%. These findings suggest that the heat consumption of spray drying is a significant cost. (1) In general, 60% of the overall cost is associated with heat consumption. If you spend $2 on a glass of milk and receive only 3/4, there’s something wrong.
The food and pharmaceutical business has been fighting the same problem for years. The underlying issue behind this problem is a single concern. It’s tough for the dryer to operate properly when there’s a lot of deposition. As a result, cleanup operations consume time, resulting in greater production downtime. Deposition can also cause or exacerbate fire safety concerns in certain situations.
Bay City Boiler recommends annual scheduled maintenance as part of your annual planned maintenance. Many dryers are fueled by natural gas-fired burners, and these flames have a typical temperature of 3500°F (1950°F). The most efficient way to reduce energy consumption in spray drying is to decrease the process’s specific energy use, which is why having an efficient burner is so important.
Contact Us for Boiler Maintenance
Boiler maintenance with Bay City Boiler is important to prolong the life of your boiler and prevent expensive repairs. Maintenance can be as simple as a visual inspection or more comprehensive like a pressure test. Our maintenance packages are designed to meet the needs of your boiler based on manufacturer recommendations.
Bay City Boiler offers several service plans to meet your needs and budget.
If you manage a spray drying operation and don’t have a maintenance plan in place, talk to Bay City Boiler. When it is time to perform the periodic overhaul, we have the expertise to refurbish it at our facility.
(Note: many customers choose to have duplicate burners so that they are swapped into production while another group of burners is being serviced at our facility.)