Acoustic Drying

Yes, Acoustic Drying Technology.

Many industrial processes require drying or warming. Particularly challenging problems are where you wish to dry without warming because you do not wish your materials to catch fire or to change their chemical composition. The traditional way to deal with this is to have a long drying conveyor where air goes past the materials removing moisture or a gentle conductive heat from industrial radiators warms without cooking. These use a lot of energy and they use a lot of air. And all the air has to be moved, using energy. Sometimes you need to clean the used air, too, involving more expense. And particularly in continuous process production the material has to move on a conveyor the full 80 foot or so of the conveyor, using more energy.

Using the traditional methods can often hit the problem that the materials dry from the outside. There is no certainty that the entire product has dried. To get round this you dry the materials long enough to ensure the middle has dried, which risks cooking the outside.

Acoustic drying technology reduces or eliminates the problems, and significantly reduces expense.

We have all seen illustrations of sound waves. We know that sound will go through materials, so for instance you can hear someone shouting outside your window, or as children we could hear mum shouting even though the bedroom door was closed. And we all know in offices that sometimes private conversations are overheard or partly heard.

When the sound waves hit water in a material they are able to move the water through to the outside of the material. That makes it easier to collect the water with air or to remove it with heat.

The drying process is more effective because sound forces water to the outside of the material. The differential cooking problem does not arise because the sound has forced water from the inside of the material to the outside, so as soon as the outside is dry we can stop heating or drying.immediately.

The conveyor and dryer mechanism can be shorter because the job is done quicker. Much less space is needed. And less energy is needed to move the material along the conveyor because the conveyor is significantly shorter.

Noise pollution could be an issue. Heat Technologies Inc. sets the sound well above the human hearing range so humans are not affected. And if you use guard dogs they are usually outside the premises or not inside when the machinery is operating. And if necessary Heat Technologies Inc. can go above the range a dog can hear.

Heat Technologies Inc. Founder and President Gene Plavnik recorded in an article for a trade magazine

• Up to 70% less time in the drier
• Up to 75% less energy use
• The same or less process air temperature. Even with increased speed the air does not need more heating
• Less than 50% as much air - so much less air to move heat and clean
• Up to 67% less footprint because the entire drying priocess takes place in a much shorter space.

The company say that the "payback time" for buying their technology has always been less than a year and some customers have recovered their investment within a few months.

The technology is only available from Heat Technologies Inc www.heattechnologiesinc.com . Heat Technologies Inc is based in Atlanta, Georgia.

I saw a presentation by Gene Plavnik in Amsterdam. I was so impressed I had to write this article.