Vacuum concentrator evaporators commonly used in industry are those that use the heat pump system as heat exchange energy.
This technology is based on a principle that has been known to physicists for over a century: the Carnot principle presented by Lord Kevin, which involved using the same machine to heat and cool an environment, this system is currently used in the refrigeration industry.
This principle, which is already rational from a physical point of view, also becomes current from an industrial and economic point of view, considering that the heat pump system is very well balanced as the optimal working range of this whole is perfectly corresponding to the thermal and cooling energy requirements of our vacuum concentrator evaporators.
The operation of the heat pump essentially consists of a sealed circuit inside, in which a gas, normally Freon, performs an entire thermodynamic cycle, the same consists in practice in an almost adiabatic compression at almost constant volume occurring in a hermetic volumetric compressor.
During the first phase of the cycle, called compression, Freon increases in pressure and temperature with an increase of its enthalpy content, this thermal energy is used in our vacuum evaporators to heat and evaporate the liquid giving it heat.
In the following thermodynamic cycle, the same Freon of the vacuum evaporators goes through an expansion valve where it undergoes a “lamination” process and a consequent pressure reduction and therefore a drastic drop in temperature. This change of state from gas to liquid is used in vacuum evaporation to subtract heat from the condensate shortly before evaporated; the Freon absorbs the heat again and returns to the compressor to resume the cycle.
On the basis of the type of liquid to be concentrated and the final expectations, these vacuum concentrators can be made in various executions: with a horizontal or vertical development tank, with immersed coil or external jacket, equipped with wall scraping systems in case of use of encrusting products, with discs when there is the need for a higher density of the product without undermining the performance of the vacuum concentrator.
The choice of the material of which the vacuum concentrator evaporators are made is widely diversified in order to always guarantee the tolerability of the treated liquid; it is important that the concentration and evaporation system automatically controls the densities of the treated product in order to obtain a suitable product to recycle; the low boiling temperature controlled does not compromise a degradation of the biological matrix of the concentrated product during the vacuum evaporation.
The continuous commitment and the evolution of the design has led to the creation of a line of vacuum concentrator evaporators called “high efficiency”; the use of a different type of Freon, the balancing, the maximization of heat exchange and the careful choice of the various components, have led to the presentation and marketing of a vacuum concentration and evaporation plant with distillation yields up to 20 % higher.
