Research Topic

Particle separation in discontinuous vacuum processes

Vacuum dryers are often used for drying high-quality and heat-sensitive products. Due to a pressure reduction, these offer the advantage of a lower evaporation temperature and the product can thus be dried more gently. The steam (vapours) generated during drying entrains fine particles from the bulk material in particular. To enable recovery of the mostly valuable products and to prevent contamination of the following plant components, the particle-laden vapour stream is passed through a vapour filter.

The previous design of such vapour filters in the vacuum range is based on empirical values from filtration plants in the normal pressure range. This often leads to an over- or undersizing of the filter area and thus to increased investment costs on the one hand and to an unstable filter operation on the other hand.

The aim of the research project is to find a standardised and general dimensioning basis for the size and operation of vapour filters in order to enable a more economical design of the vapour filters.