FOAMED PRODUCTS VACUUM-FREEZE DRYER AND TECHNIQUE OF AUTOMATIC CONTROL OVER ITS OPERATION Russian patent published in 2009 - IPC F26B5/06 

FIELD: heating, drying.

SUBSTANCE: proposed invention relates to the sphere of freeze-dried foodstuff manufacture immediately dealing with design of vacuum-freeze dryers and automatic techniques of control over their operation. The foamed products vacuum-freeze dryer consists of a housing, a desublimator, nipples for discharge of air and uncondensible gases, carriers represented by movable elements shaped to have a well-developed spatial structure and mounted so that to enable regulated drive-actuated rotation, foam generators, power supply sources, a device for discharge of ready-dried product residues from the carriers surfaces and a conveyor for removal of ready-dried product from the housing through a gate valve. Inside the taper-shaped housing there is the desublimator mounted parallel to the generatrix (the desublimator cooling surface element calculated from the formula) and a carrier additionally utilised as a target energy supply element and a foam generator. The carrier is composed of coaxially arranged tubes with a grid mounted onto the outer tube fabricated of a porous semi-permeable material. Due to the varied length filaments at its nodal points the grid is actually shaped into a wire brush. The carrier is connected to the product and the inert gas inlet nipples (via a reinforced flexible conduit pipe in the housing lower part) and to the drive (via a steering arm in the housing upper part). The proposed technique of automatic control over the dryer operation envisages measurement of the temperature and flow of the inert gas being supplied into the carrier, of the coolant agent temperature and the carrier steering arm rotation speed with the information thus retrieved used as the basis for regulation of the product foam generation and drying processes.

EFFECT: enhanced intensity of the freeze-drying process.

2 cl, 7 dwg