What Is A Glass Wiped Film Evaporator?
Glass wiped film evaporators are suited for the distillation, separation, concentration, stripping, dehydration, and deodorization of heat-sensitive or viscous products. Due to its jacketed glass and corrosion-resistant pipe sections, the glass wiped evaporator is adept at thermal separation.
A wiped film evaporator is ideally suited to process hard to handle, heat-sensitive, and viscous materials. Typically fitted with rotating wipers, it hastens the evaporation process by keeping the product film turbulent so that the heat transfer and mass transfer are optimized.
Glass evaporator units come with heating/cooling circulators as well as vacuum pumps for better functionality. The development of these evaporators is as a result of the need to purify temperature-sensitive products by evaporation.
The pressure-sensitive glass evaporator can operate at mid or low evaporation temperatures to minimize the residence time of the product in the evaporation chamber.
How Does a Glass Wiped Film Evaporator Work?
In a glass wiped (or thin-film) evaporator, a rotating wiper system distributes the crude product to a film on the inner surface of a heated pipe. The wiping system then speeds up the evaporation process by keeping the product film turbulent to ensure the optimization of mass and heat transfer.
The lower boiling fraction of the raw material within the evaporator vaporizes; rapidly ensuring residence time of the product wall is very short. The vapors are then condensed on an external condenser with the concentrate continuously discharging out of the bottom part of the evaporator.
The wiped system guarantees a uniform, laminar mixing of the thin film on the entire evaporator surface. With the wiping on the unheated areas and overlapping of the rollers, the elimination of dead-zones is possible. At the same time, the liquid thin film on the rollers renews continuously.
Build-up or caking of material on the evaporator surface and on the rollers, which might happen with other wiping systems, is completely avoided with the glass film evaporator system. A high wiping frequency and the resultant renewal speed of the boundary layer ensure high evaporation rates.
Centrifugal force drives the wipers against the evaporator wall. Heated with thermo oil or steam, the viscosity of the liquid will determine the drive rotation speed.
Features of a Glass Wiped Film Evaporator
Due to the nature of materials making up a glass wiped evaporator, all contact parts are made of glass and PTFE to ensure minimum corrosion and degradation. As they, by design, carry out high vacuum distillation, these evaporators must come complete with efficient condensers.
Any good glass wiped film evaporator should have all flameproof electrical and instrumentation. It is an apparatus that should work with the lowest possible temperature to ensure little residence time. One key feature that distinguishes a glass evaporator from other types is; it allows for visual observation.
The use of mechanical or magnetic seals is an additional measure to eliminate the risk of any leakage. A modular system for all glass components permits flexible design and rapid assembly of the evaporator unit. Most glass wiped film evaporators offer digitalized control of motor speed. Others come with even more advanced automation levels.
Additionally, a suitable glass film evaporator features a smooth evaporation surface for easy cleaning coupled with reliable, long-lasting drives.
Glass Wiped Film Evaporator Cost and Manufacturer
WKIE LAB is a professional lab equipment manufacturer from China. And we have a long-time experience in producing instruments. So, we can promise that every product bought from WKIE LAB has the highest quality on the market.
Then, how much does a WKIE LAB glass wiped film evaporator cost? Actually, as we have our own professional professor team, modernized factory, and raw material supplier, we can always provide our customers with the best instruments at the lowest price. So, if you are interested in WKIE LAB product, don’t hesitate, just contact us, and you can acquire the most satisfying price!
Applications of Glass Wiped Film Evaporators
The demand for delicate distillation of thermally sensitive products has considerably increased in the recent past. Within the chemical, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and similar industries, new innovative products require quality distillation apparatus.
Glass wiped film evaporators are highly suitable for liquids that are sensitive to heat, are viscous, or have high molecular weight. Their design allows for better distillation, separation, and concentration. As a result, glass evaporators are now widely used in laboratory and test plant operations within the following sectors and industries:
- Edible oil and fats Industry: One of the critical advantages of glass wiped evaporation is its molecular distillation. Useful in Esters, fatty acids, mono, di, & triglycerides, alcohols, oil deodorization, turpentine, and waxes.
- Chemical industries: Ethereal oils, olfactory products, solvent recovery, residue removal and decolorization, detergents, insecticides, fertilizers, peroxides, metal-organic compounds, are some examples of the glass evaporator’s usefulness.
- Petrochemicals: Lubricating oils, paraffin, water removal, tar containing products, and crude oil residues.
- Synthetics Fiber Industry: For the development of softeners, elastomers, polyesters and polymers, biomaterial concentration, and polymer devolatilization
- Pharmaceutical Industry: Concentration of botanicals and essential oils, development of antibiotics, ferments, hop, tobacco, maw seed, and similar plant extracts effectively as drugs, vitamins, and hormones.
- Food Industry: Glass wiped film evaporators are very useful in the manufacture of edible products. Dairy products, coffee, tea, cocoa, aroma concentrates, proteins and protein substances, juice, sugar derivates, flavor purification, and much more.
- Vacuum Distillation: Hemp, terpenes and terpenoids, after extraction purification of carbon dioxide, butane, hydrocarbon, ethanol, etc.
- Green Chemistry/Bio Industry: With the modern industry doing all it can to reduce its carbon footprint; glass film evaporators can play a significant role. Product recovery, emission reduction, contaminant removal, prevention of thermal decomposition, and water white biodiesel production.
- Other Applications: Evaporation without mass transfer, stripping, feed streams containing solid particles, fractional distilling, etc.
Final Thoughts
Glass wiped film evaporation works best for temperature-sensitive products. This distillation method is among the fastest and most effective for low evaporation temperature, short resistance time, and high evaporation rates.
When faced with challenging heat-sensitive, highly viscous, or low thermal conductivity materials, glass wiped film technology provides the solution.
