What is a Vacuum Tray Dryer and what are the key benefits

The Standard Group of Companies is a major leader in the supply of equipment in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.

The S2 Engineering Services division, is part of the Standard Group and design and manufacture Vacuum Tray Dryers (VTD's)  which are easy to use, and consume less power than other traditional types of dryers.

Vacuum tray dryers are mainly used for the drying of high grade, temperature and oxygen sensitive products.

Vacuum tray dryers are also the most commonly used batch dryer in the pharmaceutical industry.

A VTD works under vacuum conditions using the conduction principle.

The design of these VTD's range from laboratory to production scale and can meet sterile process requirements when necessary for the drying of highly toxic or sensitive products.

Standard and bespoke designs can be accomodated which includes where needed, circular and rectangular drying systems along with a vacuum pump system to fulfil the operational requirements.

Products are typically manufactured from stainless steel however where required, the contact and vapour parts can be finished with high corrosion resistant materials including Alloy C276 (Hastelloy).

Heating temperatures are normally in the range of 750 Deg C and 1105 Deg C, and depending on the application plus surface area, drying can take up to 2 days, but is normally dry in a few hours.

On completion of the drying, the product can be cooled by the circulating of cooling water through the heating plates.

Main design features-

• Modular Design with high attention to operator health, safety and access.
• Rounded edges and corners throughout the design
• Sturdy welded external chamber reinforcement ensures maximum operating protection and dependability under full vacuum operation
• Hollow pad type baffled heating shelfs
• All shelf to manifold connectors are located outside the dryer chamber
• Validation ports and nitrogen purge nozzles
• Fluid heating and circulating systems either steam or electrically heated
• Vapour condensation unit along with a receiver
• Vacuum pump system provided to match customer requirements.
• Circular and rectangular drying systems ideal for small to moderate levels of production
• cGMP construction for pharmaceutical models.

Typical applications:-

• API & Bulk Drugs
• Laboratories and research centres
• Food industry

Main benefits

• Low power consumption
• Baffled shelfs provide effective heat transfer
• Vapour condensation unit and receiver aids solvent recovery
• Rounded edge and corners provide easy and efficient cleaning
• Very efficient and heat sensitive
• Drying action becomes faster as heat is easily transferred throughout the body of the dryers, due to its large surface area
• Dries large moisture as compared to normal dryers
• The quality of the dried material is better than that of the normal dryers