Role of Evaporator in Food Industry

The evaporator is a heat exchanger intended to heat a given compound and to separate water by evaporation. Evaporators are widely used in the food processing industry to remove a portion of water from food products. This reduces bulk and weight for subsequent processing thereby increasing solids, helping to preserve the product, facilitating end customers, and concentrating color or flavor.

The pharmaceutical sector is another an industry where evaporators are mainly used, especially when the moisture is removed to make the final product more chemically stable.

We use jam, condensed milk, milk powder, dried cheese powder in our daily life. But have you ever wondered how these things were made? The food industry is booming, and readymade food is one of the reasons. All this is made possible by the evaporators used in the food industry. In the food industry, raw materials contain more water than needed in the final product. The easiest way to remove water is to heat the evaporator. Food technicians use the evaporation process to make it concentrate.

Use of evaporator in the food industry

Evaporation is widely used to concentrate fruit and vegetable juices, milk, coffee extracts, refined sugars, and salt.

Evaporation is different from drying and dehydration because the liquid made from it is a non-solid liquid. Evaporation only serves as the first step in making the finished product into concentrated liquid and dried goods. By spraying, dried items are prepared. So powdered products are a combination of both techniques like milk powder. This combination of tricks is economically attractive because high-efficiency evaporation costs less than other water disposal techniques.

Evaporation is carried out as a continuous step process. That is, the flow of input raw material and product is constant and its concentration is kept constant.

Evaporation removes excess water from food or fruit. In this way, food improves its quality of life. Make it easy to store and for a long time.

Objectives of Evaporators in Food Processing:

·           To reduce water activity and lengthen shelf life

·           To improve the stability of handling of the product. 

·           It may be used as an economical preparatory step for subsequent dehydration, as in the cases of spray drying, drum drying, vacuum drying, freeze-dried, crystallization, and mixing

·           Pre-concentration reduces the cost of energy for subsequent processes.

Where these evaporators can be used?

·           Tomato processing.

·           Dairy products.

·           Fruit processing.

·           Juice production.

·           Aseptic filling machine.

·           Jam Production.

·           Juice extractor / refiner.

·           Jam sterilizing machine/sterilizer

Many Industrial Evaporator Manufacturers are available in the market who offers a wide range of evaporators that required in the food industry. Some of the energy-saving evaporation systems:

·          Single Effect Evaporators

·          Multiple Effect Evaporators

·          Vapor Recompression Evaporators