Drum Drying - Fritz has several double-drum stainless steel roll dryers. Drum drying is ideally suited for high or low solids content, high molecular weight water-soluble polymers. The liquid feed stock is pumped from overhead between two parallel rolls which are filled with live steam. The drums, separated by a narrow gap, turn inward and a thin layer of polymer is formed on the heated rolls. As the drums rotate, the material dries and is removed by a knife. The dry product is collected and transferred to a rotary hammer mill, reduced to the required particle size and packaged. A delicate balance between feed rate, roll speed, steam pressure and roll gap is maintained to ensure consistent product that meets the customers specifications.

Spray Drying - Fritz has a fourteen foot diameter countercurrent spray dryer with nozzle atomization. Spray drying is ideally suited for high solids content, low molecular weight water-soluble polymers and inorganic chemicals. The liquid feed stock is atomized into a spray of fine droplets. The spray is then contacted with, and suspended by, a heated gas stream, allowing the liquid to evaporate and leave the dried solids in essentially the same size and shape as the atomized droplets. Finally, the dried powder is separated from the gas stream, collected and packaged. For custom product design and development, our lab is equipped with a 4 foot diameter pilot spray dryer.

MICROWAVE DRYING
Fritz Industries uses microwave oven dryers for drying water-based ultra-high molecular weight polymers. Often when ultra-high molecular weight polymers are diluted to a pumpable state for drying by other means, the solids content is too low to be economically feasible. Continuous conveying allows polymers to be dried in their original state without dilution. The dryer product is milled to the specified particle size and packaged to customer’s requirements.