US 12,072,145 B2
Gas disperser for a spray dryer and methods
Mads Lund Steffensen, Søborg (DK); Kristian Mark Ingvorsen, Søborg (DK); and Jasbir Dhanoa, Søborg (DK)
Assigned to GEA Process Engineering A/S, (DK)
Appl. No. 17/254,801
Filed by GEA Process Engineering A/S, Søborg (DK)
PCT Filed Jun. 29, 2018, PCT No. PCT/DK2018/050175
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Dec. 21, 2020,
PCT Pub. No. WO2020/001713, PCT Pub. Date Jan. 2, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2021/0293477 A1, Sep. 23, 2021
Int. Cl. B01D 1/18 (2006.01); F15D 1/00 (2006.01); F26B 3/12 (2006.01); F26B 21/00 (2006.01)
CPC F26B 3/12 (2013.01) [B01D 1/18 (2013.01); F15D 1/001 (2013.01); F26B 21/00 (2013.01)] 15 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A spray drying apparatus comprising:
at least one gas disperser for guiding gas into a drying chamber, said gas disperser comprising:
an inlet duct section with an upstream end and a downstream end, and with an internal diameter defining a cross-sectional area, the inlet duct section defining an axial direction, a radial direction, and a tangential direction, and
a flow conditioning device located in the inlet duct section and having a diameter substantially corresponding to an internal diameter of the inlet duct section, the flow conditioning device comprising:
at least one hole plate having a plurality of holes distributed over substantially an entire cross-sectional area of the hole plate, wherein the hole plate has a hole plate thickness, wherein each of said plurality of holes has a respective cross-sectional dimension defined as the longest straight line between two perimeter points of the respective hole, and wherein the hole plate thickness and each of said cross-sectional dimensions are of the same order of magnitude; and
at least one flow straightener positioned downstream of the at least one hole plate and substantially parallel to and at a distance in the axial direction from a downstream side of the at least one hole plate, the flow straightener having a plurality of flow channels, each having a longitudinal extension parallel to the axial direction,
wherein the plurality of flow channels extend farther in the axial direction than a hole plate thickness by a factor in a range of 5 to 200.