JPH03188904A - Pressurized freeze concentrator - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To increase the amt. of an ice crystal to be forced into a pressurizing cylinder and excellently separate a concd. liq. by freezing the ice crystal frozen in a first cooling cylinder in a second cooling cylinder while adding a precooled raw material. CONSTITUTION:The pressurizing cylinder 9 having a downward tapered hole is connected to the lower part of the cooling cylinders 4 and 5 having a mother liquor vessel 2 at the upper part through an insulating cylinder 8. A discharge pipe 13 for recovering the concd. liq. is connected to the upper part of the hole, and an endless tensile wire 17 for dragging the ice crystal is circulated downward through the mother liquor vessel 2, cylinders 4 and 5, insulating cylinder 8 and pressurizing cylinder 9. In this case, the cylinders 4 and 5 are provided in two stages, the first cooling cylinder 4 is made slender, precoolers 18a and 18b are provided to an appropriate number of pipes 2a and 2b directly connecting the second cooling cylinder 5 and the mother liquor vessel 2, and the inner diameter of the tapered hole is made larger than that of the cylinder 4.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION "Field of Industrial Application" The present invention relates to a pressurized freeze-concentrator for producing various beverage liquids, medicinal liquids, or low concentrate liquids thereof.

[Prior art] A solution consisting of a solute and a solvent (water) is temporarily frozen to form ice crystals, and by pressurizing the ice crystals, a solution with a high solute concentration is separated from the ice crystals to produce a concentrated liquid. So-called pressurized freeze concentrators have been known for some time.

In these devices, the solidification point (freezing point) of the solution is
It takes advantage of the physical phenomenon that the concentration of solute relative to water (water) changes depending on the pressure applied to the solution.

For example, in the case of an aqueous solution, pressurization lowers the freezing point, and a high concentration of solutes contained in the aqueous solution also lowers the freezing point.

FIG. 2 shows a system diagram of the previous apparatus, and the raw material liquid 32 injected into the mother liquid container 31 by the pump P naturally falls into the cooling cylinder 33.

A jacket 34 on this cooling cylinder 33
The raw material liquid 32 is cooled and frozen into ice crystals 36 by the circulating cooling medium 38 which enters from the inlet 34a and exits from the outlet 34b.

The ice crystals 3B are pulled downward by the pulling body 37, pass through the heat insulating section 35, and are press-fitted into a pressurizing cylinder 38 having a tapered hole with a narrowed lower part, and are pressurized.

Furthermore, a cooling medium 40 having a temperature slightly higher than that of the cooling medium 38 that enters from the inlet 41a of the jacket 41 provided in the pressurizing cylinder 38 and circulates through the outlet 41b.
As a result, the ice crystals 36 are heated and the hardness of the ice is lowered. As a result, the concentrated liquid 44 having a higher solute concentration than the ice crystals 36 is melted and separated, and flows out into the discharge pipe 43 via the bokento 42 .

However, in the device described in ``2'', due to the poor thermal conductivity within the cooling cylinder 33, the ice crystals 36 are not sufficiently cooled in the radial direction, and the hardness of the ice near the pulling body 37 is insufficient. It becomes.

Therefore, in the past, in order to prevent variations in the hardness of freezing in the radial direction in the ice crystals 36, the diameter of the cooling cylinder inner tube was made extremely thin. This resulted in a decrease in the amount of ice crystals 36 that were forced into the pressurizing cylinder 38, and the amount of concentrated liquid to be separated was also small, resulting in an apparatus with low throughput.

LObject of the present invention] The present invention is aimed at making ice crystals that are frozen in a cooling cylinder have a large radius, and by making the hardness of the ice crystals uniform in the radial direction inside the ice crystals, the ice crystals can be press-fitted into a pressurizing cylinder. To provide a pressurized freeze-concentrator with high throughput, which can increase the amount of ice crystals in a pressurized cylinder and half-melt the ice crystals in a pressurized cylinder to effectively separate and produce a concentrated liquid.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to solve the above problems, the pressurized freeze concentrator of the present invention has a cooling cylinder having a mother liquor container in the upper part, and a cooling cylinder having a tapered hole with a narrowed lower part. The pressurized cylinder is connected via an insulated cylinder, a discharge pipe for concentrated liquid recovery is connected to a part of the taper hole, and an endless tensile wire for pulling ice crystals is connected to the mother liquid container, inside the cylinder, and insulated. This is a device in which the cooling cylinder is passed downward from three sides inside the part and inside the pressurized cylinder, and the cooling cylinder has two stages, the first cooling cylinder is an elongated cylinder, the second cooling cylinder and the mother liquid are A pre-cooling device was provided in an appropriate number of pipes directly connected to the container, and the second cooling cylinder had a tapered hole with an inner diameter larger than that of the first cooling cylinder.

[Function] The mother liquid is cooled and frozen in the first cooling cylinder, and the ice crystals are frozen by adding the pre-cooled mother liquid to the outer periphery of the ice crystals in the second cooling cylinder. increases in size in the radial direction. Further, the ice crystals are pulled and press-fitted into the pressurized cylinder by a tensile wire, and are semi-melted within the pressurized cylinder. Also, due to the pressure applied by this pressurizing cylinder, the high concentration solute liquid within the ice crystals is squeezed from below in three directions, and is melted and separated from the discharge pipe.

[Example J] An example of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to FIG.

Figure 1 is a system diagram of this device. In the figure, under the mother liquor container 2 that temporarily stores the raw material solution 3, which is an aqueous solution containing dissolved solutes, there is a container with a uniform inner diameter and a vertical A first cooling cylinder 4 having an inner tube 4a having a cylindrical body is connected thereto. Furthermore, at the bottom of this first cooling cylinder 4,
A second cooling cylinder 5 comprising an inner pipe 5C with a slightly wider inner wall shape and a larger diameter than the inner pipe 4a.
is connected.

Therefore, at the connection part 5b between the inner pipe 4a and the inner pipe 5C,
Bypass pipes 2a and 2b are connected. The bypass pipe 2a is provided with a pre-cooling jacket +8a, and the bypass pipe 2b is provided with a pre-cooling jacket +8b. Further, the pre-cooling jacket 18a is provided with an inlet +9a and an outlet +9b, and the pre-cooling jacket 18b is provided with an inlet 20a and an outlet 20b, and these two jackets 18a,! 8b, the cooling medium 21 is fed into the respective inlets 19a, 20a by a pump (not shown), and the jackets 18a, ! After circulating in 8b, the outlet +9
b and 20b are respectively discharged.

Further, the first cooling cylinder 4 is provided with a jacket (Ga) surrounding the inner pipe 4a, and the second cooling cylinder 5 is provided with a jacket (Ga) surrounding the inner pipe 5c.
6b is provided. These jackets 6a and salmon,
and eb are connected by a path 6e.

These jackets) 8a and 8b are provided with an inlet 6c and an outlet 6d, and are operated by a pump (not shown) to -30 to -
The cooling medium 7 having a temperature of about 15° C. is introduced through the inlet 6c, circulates through these jackets Ela and 8b, and then is discharged from the outlet 6d.

Further, the lower flange 5a of the second cooling cylinder 5 includes:
The upper flange 8a of the pressurizing cylinder 9 is connected with the heat insulating cylinder 8 in between. The inner tube 8a of the pressurizing cylinder 9 has a tapered hole with a narrowed lower part, and has an inlet 10a and an outlet 10a.
0b, and a jacket lO surrounding the inner tube 8a is provided within this pressurizing cylinder 9.

Inside this jacket 1O, there are 2
A cooling medium 11 having a temperature of ~5°C flows in [koIOa
It is fed in and circulated, and then discharged from the outlet 10b.

In addition, a recessed pocket 12 for a liquid reservoir is provided at the upper part of the inner wall of the inner tube 9a near the heat insulating cylinder 8, and this blur -z)+
2 is connected to a drainage pipe 13.

Furthermore, above the container 2 is a pump l that carries the raw material liquid 3.
is installed, and a chain 17, which is an endless pulling body that is sent down on the central axis of the device by a motor (not shown), connects the container 2, the inner pipe 4a, the inner pipe 5c, the heat insulating cylinder 8, and the pressurizing body. It is provided by penetrating the tube 9.

Next, the processing functions of each part of this device will be explained in detail below.

The raw material liquid 3 is poured into the container 2 by the pump 1, and the raw material liquid 3
flows from the container 2 into the connecting portion 5b of the second cooling cylinder 5 via the inner pipe 4a of the first cooling cylinder 4 and the bypass pipes 2a, 2b.

Here, a jacket for pre-cooling the bypass pipes 2a and 2b)
The raw material liquid 3 passing through this/Haypass tube is appropriately cooled by the cooling medium 21 circulating within the tubes 18a and 18b.

Further, the raw material liquid 3 is cooled in the inner tube 4a by the cooling medium 7 circulating through the jacket fla of the first cooling cylinder 4, and is frozen into ice crystals lea.

This ice crystal lea is frozen around the chain 17, so the descent of the chain 17! 82 will be towed by the cooling cylinder 5. The pulled ice crystals lea pass through the bypass pipes 2a and 2b at the connecting portion 5b of the second cooling cylinder 5.
It is poured by. After the pre-cooled raw material liquid 3 is added, it is further cooled by the cooling medium 7 in Jaquera Bb and further frozen to become a second ice crystal tab.

Here, since the inner tube 5c of the second cooling cylinder 5 has a structure that widens toward the end, the increase in internal pressure of the ice crystals due to freezing of the ice crystals t6b can be suppressed to a low level.

This ice crystal +8b having an appropriate freezing hardness is further pulled by the chain 17 and press-fitted into the pressurizing cylinder 9.

Cooling medium 1 circulating in the jacket 10 of this pressurizing cylinder 9
1, the ice crystals 16b passing through the inner tube 9a are heated,
Allows for moderate semi-melting.

Furthermore, the ice crystals 18b that are pulled from above by the chain 17 and press-fitted into the tapered hole of the pressurizing cylinder 9 have a high ice crystal internal pressure in the lower part and a low ice crystal internal pressure in the upper part.

By the way, the higher the pressure or the higher the solute concentration, the lower the freezing point of the ice crystals 18b, so that as the ice crystals 18b passing through the pressurizing cylinder 9 move downward, they will either be in a solution with a high solute concentration or as crystal ITfb. As it melts and separates more and more, it is squeezed out upwards where the pressure is lower, and flows into the pocket 12.

The concentrated liquid 14 that has flowed into the discharge pipe 1
3 flows out to a tank (not shown) and is stored in 4a.

In addition, the remaining ice crystals with low solute concentration that passed through the pressurized cylinder 9 +8
b will fall into the tank 15.

In addition, in case of two bypass pipes 2a and 2b,
Although the raw material liquid 3 is pre-cooled with wood and supplied to the connection part 5b, it is also possible to provide a large number of bypass pipes equipped with these pre-cooling jackets. In addition, instead of these pre-cooling jackets, the raw material 3 in the bypass pipe is directly cooled by the jacket 8a of the first cooling cylinder 4, and at the same time, a heater is installed at a position that is not close to the jacket 6a and can directly heat the bypass pipe. The raw material liquid 3 in this bypass pipe is
It may be of a heated structure to prevent it from freezing.

In this way, the cooling cylinder has a two-stage structure, and the ice crystals lea that are first purified in the first cooling cylinder 4 are made elongated, so that the raw material liquid 3 can be quickly frozen, and the second cooling cylinder 4 can quickly freeze the raw material liquid 3. 1 In the cylinder 5, the raw material liquid 3 is pre-cooled and easily freezes.
Since the ice crystal lea was frozen and aged to form ice crystal 1eb while adding ice crystal +8b, it is possible to refine an icicle with uniform ice hardness within ice crystal +8b.

[Effects of the Invention] As stated above, according to the present invention, in a two-stage cooling cylinder, ice crystals frozen in the first cooling cylinder are frozen in the second cooling cylinder. The ice crystals were frozen while adding a pre-chilled raw material liquid to increase the ripening of the ice crystals and increase the diameter of the ice crystals. This makes it possible to increase the amount of ice crystals that are press-fitted into the pressurizing cylinder and to semi-melt them so as to uniformly lower the crystal hardness, thereby improving the processing function of concentrated liquid separation.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system sectional view showing an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a conventional example. In the figure: Private pump 2... Container 2 2a, 2b... Bypass pipe 3 - Skewer raw material liquid 4e - 1st
Cooling cylinder 4a mouth pipe 5...Second cooling cylinder 5a, 9a...Flange 5b...Connection part 5c11
・Inner tube 8a, 8b ・Jacket flc
, 10a, lθa, 20a*・Inflow port 8d, 10b,
l1lb, 20b... Outlet 6e path 7.11.21 Fist cooling medium 8 Insulated cylinder body 9 Pressure cylinder, 9aΦ Inner tube 10 Jacket 12 Recessed pocket 13・Discharge pipe 14・
・Concentrated liquid 15--tank 16a, 16b...
Ice crystal 17...Chain 18a, 18b e4 jacket

Claims (1)

[Claims] A pressurizing cylinder having a tapered hole with a narrowed lower part is connected to the lower part of the cooling cylinder having the mother liquid container at the upper part through an insulating cylinder, and a discharge pipe for recovering concentrated liquid is connected to the upper part of the taper hole. , a device in which an endless tensile wire rod for pulling ice crystals is passed through the mother liquid container, the inside of the cylinder, the inside of the heat-insulating cylinder, and the inside of the pressurized cylinder from above to below, and the cooling cylinder is arranged in two stages, and the cooling cylinder is arranged in two stages. The first cooling cylinder is made into an elongated cylinder, and a pre-cooling device is provided on an appropriate number of pipes that directly connect the second cooling cylinder and the mother liquor container. A pressurized freeze concentration device characterized by having a large tapered hole.