CRYOGENIC VACUUM-AND-SUBLIMATION INSTALLATION WITH COMPLEX USAGE OF INERT GAS Russian patent published in 2012 - IPC F26B9/06 F26B5/06 

FIELD: food industry.

SUBSTANCE: cryogenic vacuum-and sublimation installation with complex usage of inert gas includes a device for preliminary freezing of the product, a vacuum-and sublimation drier with a sealed drying chamber wherein a perforated drum and a heating element are positioned; the element is designed in the form of a coil installed in the bottom zone of the drum, its cross-section having the form of a segment; the heating element is the cooling agent cooler and is designed with the spacing between the tubes amounting to no more than 15 mm; the element inlet nipple is connected to the pump line of the desublimator cooling machine while the outlet nipple is connected to the low-pressure line of the cooling agent feed into the cooling machine; the drier chamber is connected to the vacuum-pumping system via the desublimator; the novelty is in the following: the device for preliminary freezing of the product is represented by a tunnel-type cryogenic fast-freezing aggregate (its frozen product feeding conveyor connected to the vacuum-and-sublimation drier doser, the drier heating element made of a material with high heat-conduction coefficient or a semi-permeable material) while the desublimator cooling machine is represented by a gas liquefaction machine working according to the Stirling reverse cycle principle; the machine nipple for feeding liquefied gas is connected to the desublimator represented by a nitrogen trap and to the fast-freezing aggregate nozzles; the nitrogen trap is installed between the vacuum-and- sublimation drier chamber and the vacuum pump; the exhaust gas outlet nipple of the cryogenic fast-freezing aggregate and the outlet nipple of the vacuum pump are connected to the inlet nipple of a membrane apparatus while its outlet nipple for inert gas cleared of impurities is connected to the automatic packaging device.

EFFECT: product fast freezing with cells preservation taking place within the whole bulk, enhancement of the sublimation process intensity due to ensuring highly efficient combined energy input to the product by varied methods.

2 cl, 2 dwg