SPRAY FLUIDIZER™

Granulation Agglomeration Drying

Production of Non-dusty Granular Products

The demand for dry products in granular form is increasing. Two of the main reasons for this are that granules are non-dusty and easy to handle, thus enabling the ever stricter environmental requirements to be met.

Many products can be obtained in granular form from a solution, suspension, or a melt in a single process stage by spraying the solid containing liquid into a fluidized layer of granules.

Niro Atomizer have applied its extensive know-how from the closely related drying techniques of spray drying, and fluidized bed drying to the development of a continuous process for producing granular, i.e. the Niro Atomizer SPRAY FLUIDIZER™.

Niro SPRAY FLUIDIZER™: Fluid bed section, heating / cooling ducts to bed section, wet scrubber in the background.

Niro SPRAY FLUIDIZER™ Granulator: Spray Fluidizer Granulator for pigment and colors with built-in metal bag filters

The Product

SPRAY FLUIDIZER™ Granulator for zinc sulphate

The product obtained from the Niro SPRAY FLUIDIZER™ is a non-dusty, non-caking, free-flowing granulate of high mechanical stability.

The shape of the particles depends mainly upon the product characteristics. Some products form nearly perfect spherical particles. Others are more irregular in shape.

The particle size distribution is controlled to suit individual requirements, typically ranging from 0.5 mm to 2 mm. The bulk density of the product is normally in the range of 30% to 50% of the particle density.

Process Advantages

The major advantages of granular material production in the continuous Niro Atomizer SPRAY FLUIDIZER™ can be summarized as follows:

• Combined drying and granulation in a single stage operation.
• Constant product qualities, such as particle size distribution, bulk density, moisture content, assured by automatic control.
• Non-dusty products fulfilling the increasing demands against environmental pollution when further handled.
• Ease of storage and handling. Hence costs can often be reduced.
• High thermal efficiency can be achieved; specific heat consumption as low as 700 kcal/kg evaporated water.
• Low process supervision costs as process can be fully automated.
• Low space requirements, due to a compact design, thus minimizing civil engineering costs.

Pilot Plant Facilities

Due to the fact that most materials behave differently in the SPRAY FLUIDIZER™, pilot plant test are often necessary in order to determine the optimum drying conditions and all other process parameters.

A complete continuous pilot plant with an evaporative capacity of up to 150 kg per hour is available for this purpose at the Niro Research and Development Center. In this plant any material can be processed under conditions completely similar to large scale industrial operation. The results of such investigations are applied in preparing the design, engineering, and construction of complete SPRAY FLUIDIZER™ installations.