METHOD FOR CONTROLLING THE SIZE OF THE SPRAYED DROPS IN A SPRAYER NOZZLE FOR SPRAY DRYING, A SPRAY DRYING APPARATUS AND A NOZZLE ATTACHMENT THERETO Russian patent published in 2020 - IPC A23L3/46 A23L3/24 

FIELD: food industry.

SUBSTANCE: method of controlling the size of sprayed drops in a sprayer, in particular for making food powders supplied to a spray nozzle, comprising the following steps: a) obtaining paste-like product subject to spraying with the help of spraying nozzle; b) continuous determination of the shear viscosity (η) of the paste-like product fed into the spray nozzle; c) determining mass flow rate (Qm) of a paste-like product fed into the spray nozzle; d) determining static pressure (P) of the paste-like product fed into the spray nozzle; e) determining density (ρ) of a paste-like product fed into the spray nozzle; f) transmitting data obtained at steps b)–e) to a control device comprising a computer and memory; g) computation processing of control data for adjustment of spraying nozzle based on data obtained at stages b)–e), and parameters of nozzle geometrical shape, stored in memory; h) transmitting the control data in the form of control signals to the spray nozzle control means and corresponding adjustment of the spraying nozzle. Apparatus for spray drying for implementing the method according to any of the preceding claims, comprising a spray head device, which has spraying nozzle provided with nozzle opening (26) for discharge of sprayed drops of product to be dried, and inlet (24) for supply of said product into vortex chamber (22) of nozzle, is characterized by the presence of an adjustment device for real-time control of the size of the droplets emitted during the spraying process based on the control data calculated at step (g) of the method, wherein adjusting device comprises vortex chamber geometrical shape adjustment device based on parameters of spray drying process and product parameters, obtained in real time during spray drying process.

EFFECT: invention makes it possible to optimize size of sprayed drops in case of changing properties of product or material, as well as changes in process conditions.

18 cl, 10 dwg, 1 tbl