An air drying unit for compressed air systems is provided. The air drying unit has a precooler/reheater, a main cooler and a moisture separator. Incoming air is cooled to cause moisture within the compressed air to condense, which is then separated to dry the compressed air. The precooler/reheater, main cooler and moisture separator are designed as an integral unit that does not require pipes to connect the components together. Instead, compressed air flows through the sealed unit through passages therein between the precooler/reheater, main cooler and moisture separator.

Hot air drying is an intensive energy consuming process, 5000-8000 kJ per kg of water. More efficient processes produce low drying rates or cannot totally dry the product because they do not integrate the four drying phases, warm up, constant drying, falling drying and aeration and do not handle dripping. To reduce the energy consumption, the exhausted mix of air and vapor is used as working fluid to drive each phase, and the dripping is collected before it goes back to the product. This fluid is compressed inside of a heat-exchanger to heat the product; however, the mix proportion, vapor and air, changes on each phase. For warm up phase, the working fluid is either hot air or condensed water; in constant phase, it is mostly vapor; in falling phase, it changes from vapor to air; and for aeration, it is air. Inlet and outlet valves control these proportions.

The present invention relates to combined cooker and dryer apparatus to use for drying material, such as raw material for producing fish or meat meal. The device of the present invention provides a cooker and a dryer apparatus with disks and scrapers for heat exchange and evaporation of the water phase from any material.

A multi-functional slurry processing system (“VARCOR”) and associated methods is disclosed. The present examples provide a multi-functional slurry processing system incorporating systems and methods for separating liquid and solid components in slurries. In particular the systems and methods described herein produce clean water, dried solids, and potential concentration of desirable constituents with a boiling point lower than water. At least one example of the multi-functional slurry processing system provides a self-contained processing facility configured to efficiently convert high water-content slurries into its constituent solid and liquid fractions and subsequently generating and collecting clean water and concentrating desirable constituents with a boiling point lower than water. The multi-functional slurry processing system advantageously applies thermodynamic principles in a system which may include various combinations of a preheater, a degassing unit, a dryer, a steam filter, a compressor, a concentrating tower, and a condensation unit.

The system for drying lignite according to the present disclosure includes a mill configured to crush the lignite; a dryer configured to receive crushed lignite from the mill, to dry the lignite by heat-exchange with steam and to discharge dried lignite; a condensing-precipitating evaporator in fluid communication with the dryer so as to receive vapor which is evaporated when the lignite is dried, and which is discharged from the dryer. The evaporator is configured to condense the vapor discharged from the dryer by heat-exchange with water. The coal dust contained in the vapor is precipitated into a condensed aqueous solution when the vapor is being condensed, and the condensed aqueous solution is discharged. The system includes a Mechanical Vapor Re-Compression (MVR) configured to receive steam generated from the condensing-precipitating evaporator, to compress the steam into superheated steam, and to supply the compressed superheated steam to the dryer.

Disclosed are a multi-stage gravity-type sludge drying apparatus and a sludge drying method using the same. The drying apparatus includes: a dryer, a preheater, a steam generator, a filter, a steam or water separation buffer tank, a steam compressor, a cooling water pump, a sealed discharge device, pipes and valves. The dryer includes several indirect dryer modules. The transportation of sludge in the dryer is achieved by gravity. The inner cavity of respective indirect dryers is filled with high-temperature steam to dry the sludge by indirect heating. The condensate water in the cavity is recycled and fed into the preheater to perform preheating and impurity removal on the wet sludge. The secondary steam generated in the dryer is filtered, compressed and overheated to become a new heat source for indirect heating in the cavity and convection drying at a bottom of the dryer.

A multi-functional slurry processing system (VARCOR) and associated methods is disclosed. The present examples provide a multi-functional slurry processing system incorporating systems and methods for separating liquid and solid components in slurries. In particular the systems and methods described herein produce clean water, dried solids, and potential concentration of desirable constituents with a boiling point lower than water. At least one example of the multi-functional slurry processing system provides a self-contained processing facility configured to efficiently convert high water-content slurries into its constituent solid and liquid fractions and subsequently generating and collecting clean water and concentrating desirable constituents with a boiling point lower than water. The multi-functional slurry processing system advantageously applies thermodynamic principles in a system which may include various combinations of a preheater, a degassing unit, a dryer, a steam filter, a compressor, a concentrating tower, and a condensation unit.

The present invention relates to a new device, a system and a method for both cooking and drying or removing the water phase from material. The device of the present invention has a large area for heat exchange and scrapers which stir the material in the container rather than transferring it around in circles.

Hot air drying is an intensive energy consuming process, 5000-8000 kJ per kg of water. More efficient processes produce low drying rates or cannot totally dry the product because they do not integrate the four drying phases, warm up, constant drying, falling drying and aeration and do not handle dripping. To reduce the energy consumption, the exhausted mix of air and vapor is used as working fluid to drive each phase, and the dripping is collected before it goes back to the product. This fluid is compressed inside of a heat-exchanger to heat the product; however, the mix proportion, vapor and air, changes on each phase. For warm up phase, the working fluid is either hot air or condensed water; in constant phase, it is mostly vapor; in falling phase, it changes from vapor to air; and for aeration, it is air. Inlet and outlet valves control these proportions.

The present invention relates to combined cooker and dryer apparatus to use for drying material, such as raw material for producing fish or meat meal. The device of the present invention provides a cooker and a dryer apparatus with disks and scrapers for heat exchange and evaporation of the water phase from any material.