Evaporator and its types

Awais Ahmad Irfan Shafiq 41 09

Evaporator

It is a equipment that is used to turn the liquid in any chemical or substance to gaseous state. The basic example is Air conditioning

in this phenomena or process evaporator consist of a liquid that takes heat of air and convert itself into gaseous form, allowing cold air to circulate.

Uses

Food and drink industry ( transportation of ice cream) Pharmaceutical industries(removes excess moisture which makes a more easily handled product and improves product stability). As a heat exchanger in industry Sugar industry

Working of evaporator

The solution containing the desired product is fed into the evaporator and passes a heat source. The applied heat converts the water in the solution into vapor. The vapor is removed from the rest of the solution and is condensed while the now concentrated solution is either fed into a second evaporator or is removed. The evaporator as a machine generally consists of four sections. The heating section consists of parallel tubes but others have plates or coils.

Working of evaporator

The concentrating and separating section removes the vapor being produced from the solution. The condenser condenses the separated vapor, then the vacuum or pump provides pressure to increase circulation.

Types of evaporators

Natural circulation evaporator Natural circulation evaporators are based on the natural circulation of the product caused by the density differences that arise from heating. After the water begins to boil, bubbles will rise and cause circulation, facilitating the separation of the liquid and the vapor. The amount of evaporation that takes place depends on the temperature difference between the steam and the solution.

Natural circulation evaporator

If tubes are not well immersed then circulation will be compromised. So forced circulation is introduced by a pump due to which good circulation is achieved at high temperature. But steam consumption is increased. Circulation evaporators can operate over a wide range of concentration and thick liquor in single unit.

Falling film evaporator

This type of evaporator is generally made of long tubes (48 meters in length) which are surrounded by steam jackets. The uniform distribution of the solution is important when using this type of evaporator. The solution enters and gains velocity as it flows downward. This gain in velocity is attributed to the vapor being evolved against the heating medium, which flows downward as well. (video)

Climbing film evaporator

These vertical evaporator are with upward flow of liquid Steam in the shell and liquid in pipe. Separator to remove entrained liquid from the vapor Inlets for steam and liquid are provided Outlets are provided for vapor and non condensable gases They are 25-50mm in dia 3-10m long

Climbing film evaporator

Feed is entered into the system Concentrated liquor is withdrawn from bottom of heater The mixture of liquid and vapor from top of the tube flows into separator, where its velocity is greatly reduced This aids in eliminating liquid droplets

Multiple-effect evaporators
Unlike single-stage evaporators, these evaporators can be made of up to seven evaporator stages or effects. The energy consumption for single-effect evaporators is very high and makes up most of the cost for an evaporation system. Putting together evaporators saves heat and thus requires less energy. Adding one evaporator to the original decreases the energy consumption to 50% of the original amount.

Adding another effect reduces it to 33% and so on. A heat saving % equation can be used to estimate how much one will save by adding a certain amount of effects The number of effects in a multiple-effect evaporator is usually restricted to seven because after that, the equipment cost starts catching up to the money saved from the energy requirement drop.

types of feeding
There are two types of feeding that can be used when dealing with multiple-effect evaporators.

Forward feeding Backward feeding.

Forward feeding takes place when the product enters the system through the first effect, which is at the highest temperature. The product is then partially concentrated as some of the water is transformed into vapor and carried away. It is then fed into the second effect which is a little lower in temperature. The second effect uses the heated vapor created in the first stage as its heating source (hence the saving in energy expenditure).

The combination of lower temperatures and higher viscosities in subsequent effects provides good conditions for treating heat-sensitive products like enzymes and proteins. In using this system, an increase in the heating surface area of subsequent effects is required.

backward feeding.

In this process, the dilute products is fed into the last effect with has the lowest temperature and is transferred from effect to effect with the temperature increasing. The final concentrate is collected in the hottest effect which provides an advantage in that the product is highly viscous in the last stages so the heat transfer is considerably better...

FORCED-CIRCULATION EVAPORATOR
Natural circulation evaporators are economical, but they cannot be used in quite a few situation: If the solution is viscous, the circulation velocity remains low which greatly reduces the heat transfer coefficient If the solution contains suspended solid particles (it may occur in a crystallizing evaporator) or if there is a possibility of salting out of a solute, settling of particles is very likely to occur because of too low a velocity attainable in a natural circulation unit.

While handling the solution of a heat sensitive material, the time of contact of the solution with the hot surface of a tube should be low. This is possible only by maintaining a high velocity of the liquid in the tubes which is not possible in a natural circulation evaporator. The velocity through the tubes is be enhanced in a forced circulation unit by employing a pump.