Spray Dryer - Powder Processing

Spray Dryer

The only box dryer designed and manufactured in Europe

The SANOVO Gentle-Air box Spray Dryer can be used on a wide range of food or feed products ranging from animal by-product to plant proteins, among others. Producing a long-lasting shelf stable powder ingredient will bring more value and application opportunities when compared to unprocessed raw materials.

Various spray drying plant sizes are available with water evaporation capacity from 50 to 2500 kg/hour. This ensures suitability for new and innovative startup companies, as well as well-established larger powder producers.

A box dryer differs from Spray drying towers by being horizontal and box shaped and therefore it is generally more compact and can often be installed in an existing building.

Low CapEx, higher yield, nozzle atomization, easy operation and preserved product properties are just some of the unique product benefits of the SANOVO Gentle-Air box Spray Dryer. Learn more about features and benefits below or contact us for additional information.

Unique Benefits Features Brochure Watch video Applications Pay back time Spray Drying in general

Everything in a box

The SANOVO gentle air box drying plant has no powder conveying ducts. The powder is separated from the drying air in the built-in bag collector.

Manual cleaning of the drying chamber is easy due to its accessibility. Consequently, wet CIP cleaning - frequently the only way to clean a tower - can be minimized.

The plant is easy to operate. Normally, all operating spots (control panel, nozzles, and powder packing) are placed on the same level and with short spacing. Hence, use of stairs or man lifts can be avoided by normal operation of the plant.

Reduced Building Height

A horizontal spray drying plant requires a much smaller building height compared to drying towers, especially in the case of high-capacity plants. Often an existing building can be used, e.g. a former warehouse. Therefore, the building costs and thus the total costs can be greatly reduced.

Higher yield

The entire drying process of the powder takes place in the drying chamber. There is no external powder conveying ducts, cyclones, or external bag house, so we can keep the loss of your product to an absolute minimum during the cleaning or change of product.

Preserved product properties

The gentle air-drying conditions are able to take place at a low drying temperature while maintain high capacity. We have found the perfect balance between inlet, outlet and powder temperature to you ensure to have a final powder that has the highest possible functional properties in regard to protein content, solubility, and color.

Safety and explosion protection

When supplying spray dryers in the EU and US, the dryers must meet the safety specifications in a number of regulations. Similar legislation is not implemented in many countries outside the EU and US.
The SANOVO box Spray Dryer has an ATEX type-examination certificate to ensure compliance with all legislation and standards.

Since all spray drying equipment installed in the EU must follow the defined directives, with the type-examination we ensure that the equipment at our customers’ sites is compliant. Naturally, as a global company our equipment also complies with legislations outside of the EU, like the United States and the Asian/Oceanian region. That provides a significant advantage for non-EU powder producers who export their products to the EU.

The importance of safety

Air flow and uniform drying

The processing time of the large powder particles in the drying chamber is longer in a horizontal spray drying plant. In a spray drying tower, the powder will stay in the drying air, or by falling to the bottom and directly out of the drying chamber by gravity.

For this reason, the drying time of the powder is identical to the residence time in the drying air. Because of the horizontal nature of a box spray dryer the large powder particles fall to the floor of the drying chamber. The particles lie there until recovered, consequently the drying time can be about a minute.

In other words, a certain degree of subsequent drying of the big particles is performed, offering a more careful, more homogeneous, and more economical drying than one-stage tower dryers.

Nozzle atomization

Powder produced by nozzles is more free flowing and has a higher bulk density. Compared to centrifugal atomizers, nozzles have a relatively high energy efficiency. Furthermore, nozzles offer a simple and compact construction with no moving parts.

Heat and energy recovery

The drying chamber is constructed in a rigid seamless stainless steel sandwich construction with 80 mm / 3.2-inch injected polyurethane foam insulating two times better than mineral wool, reducing the heat loss. Significant saving in the energy consumption is obtained by pre-heating of the intake air by the hot exhaust air from the drying chamber in the highly efficient tube heat exchanger.

Benefit both as a startup or as an established producer

The SANOVO Gentle Air Box Dryer is available in 6 different sizes ranging from a SGA 10/1 with one nozzle and an average water evaporation capacity of 50kg/hour to a SGA 300/12 with 12 nozzles and a water evaporation capacity of up to 2500 kg/hour.

This enables us to choose the dryer that matches your production needs. The compact and simple design and low installation cost is ideal for new and innovative products often produced by startup companies, but the robust and hygienic design also makes the box dryer a good choice for the well-established larger powder producers.

Preheat treatment of drying chamber

The SANOVO box dryer has a unique function that heats up the dryer before startup. This prevents condensation of cold surfaces at startup with water. The inside of the dryer can be heated up to 95 degrees Celsius without evaporation of water. The high temperature and very dry air will prevent bacterial growth.

Horizontal Spray Drying

The SANOVO Gentle Air Box Dryer is designed for a wide range of food products and to produce high quality powders at the lowest energy consumption. The technology is characterised by an improved insulation, hygienic design, simple operation and long running time between cleanings.

Horizontal box dryers offer some unique benefits when compared to the vertical spray drying towers. Unlike the enormous vertical spray drying towers, horizontal spray dryers do not require tall buildings to surround them. Most times a horizontal spray drying plant will fit in already existing building thus reducing the cost of installation significantly.

ATEX compliant

The ATEX directives consists of two EU directives describing the minimum safety requirements of the workplace and equipment used in explosive atmosphere. SANOVO's Spray Box Dryer has an ATEX type-examination certificate to ensure compliance with all legislation and standards.

The dryer may only be used according to the manufacturer’s specifications for the actual dryer. Each dryer is optimized for the actual explosion safety data for the specified powder.

Our ATEX specifications: II 1/3 D Ex h IIIB T150°C …250°C Da/Dc

Superior drying condition by unique designed plenum

Process air is distributed through a unique designed plenum for constant air flow over the individual spray nozzles. Wall (orifice plate) between plenum and drying chamber is cooled with temperate air to minimise scorched (discolouring) particles and solubility or sediment problems.

Optimized nozzle geometry

Numerous tests and trials with nozzle geometry have been carried out to obtain optimized air flow in the drying chamber ensures a minimum powder buildup on walls.

Minimum powder loss integrated bag filter

Easy and fast change of product without lifting equipment from the top of the drying chamber when changing the product or cleaning. No external powder conveying ducts as the bag filter is integrated into the drying chamber. This minimises the loss of product and complies with global environmental standards for emissions.

Heat Recovery

Spray drying is an energy-intensive process, and drying air requires heating from normal ambient temperature to the high inlet temperature. To make heating of the drying air more efficient, a tube heat exchanger is installed to recover the heat form the hot exhaust air coming from the drying chamber.

Low heat loss with sandwich panels

The drying chamber is constructed in a rigid seamless stainless steel sandwich construction with 80 mm / 3.2-inch polyurethane The insulating properties of this design improve by approx. 2.5 times compared with a 50-mm mineral wool insulation layer, which is normal for box spray dryers. The risk of condensation on walls and ceiling of the drying chamber is lessened. The drying chamber construction is fastened in one side with a sliding construction which facilitates heat expansion and avoids heat stress.

SANOx indirect heating

Drying air is completely separated from process air in a specially designed combustion chamber. This system has 98% heat efficiency compared to direct heating based on natural gas, oil or bio fuel firing.

Easy start-up and shut down

Automatic nozzle control for startup / shut down and supervision during operation can be supplied. Nozzles stems are easy accessible and CIP cleaned in a close loop and can individualy be changed/cleaned without interrupting the operation of the dryer.

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Turn you raw product into a highly valuable powder

Application Opportunities

The SANOVO Gentle Air Box dryer is suitable for a wide range of industrial applications. For instance:

Animal by-products i.e. hydrolyzed collagen, gelatin, soups and broths

Blood, hemoglobin, plasma.

Yeast and fungus i.e. single cell protein.

Plant protein from pulses, sunflower, potato and grass.

Marine i.e. hydrolyzed fish, seaweed and algae.

Vegetables and fruits.

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Calculate your pay back time

We know that investing in a spray dryer is a complex decision. By filling in an application questionnaire you will receive a mass flow inclusive energy and production figures.

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Spray Drying in General

Spray drying is one of the most widely used drying methods in the drying industry as it inherent some unique advantages.

Learn more about spray drying