In commercial installations high
values of overall transfer coefficients have been achieved
14.7.5. Film-type units
In all the units so far discussed, the liquor remains for some considerable time in the
evaporator, up to several hours with batch operation, and this may be undesirable as
many liquors decompose if kept at temperatures at or near their boiling points for any
length of time. The temperature can be reduced by operating under a vacuum, as discussed
previously, though there are many liquors which are very heat-sensitive, such as orange
juice, blood plasma, liver extracts and vitamins. If a unit is designed so that the residence
time is only a few seconds, then these dangers are very much reduced. This is the principle
of the Kestner long tube evaporator, introduced in 1909, which is fitted with tubes of 38 to
50 mm diameter, mounted in a simple vertical steam chest. The liquor enters at the bottom,
and a mixture of vapour and entrained liquor leaves at the top and enters a separator,
usually of the tangential type. The vapour passes out from the top and the liquid from
the bottom of the separator. In the early models the thick liquid was recirculated through
the unit, although the once-through system is now normally used.
An alternative name for the long-tube evaporator is the climbing film evaporator. The
progressive evaporation of a liquid, whilst it passes through a tube, gives rise to a number
of flow regimes discussed in Section 14.2.3. In the long-tube evaporator the annular flow
or climbing-film regime is utilised throughout almost all the tube length, the climbing film
being maintained by drag induced by the vapour core which moves at a high velocity
relative to the liquid film. With many viscous materials, however, heat transfer rates in
this unit are low because there is little turbulence in the film, and the thickness of the
film is too great to permit much evaporation from the film as a result of conduction
through it. In evaporators of this type it is essential that the feed should enter the tubes
as near as possible to its boiling point. If the feed is subcooled, the initial sections will
act merely as a feed heater thus reducing the overall performance of the unit. Pressure
drop over the tube length will be attributable to the hydrostatic heads of the single-phase
and two-phase regions, friction losses in these regions, and losses due to the acceleration
of the vapour phase. The first published analysis of the operation of this type of unit was
given by BADGER and his associates(29–31) who fitted a small thermocouple inside the
experimental tube, 32 mm outside diameter and 5.65 m long, so that the couple could be
moved up and down the centre of the tube. In this way, it was found that the temperature
rose slightly from the bottom of the tube to the point where boiling commenced, after
which the change in temperature was relatively small. Applying this technique, it was
possible to determine the heat transfer coefficients in the non-boiling and boiling sections
of the tube.
A falling-film evaporator with the liquid film moving downwards, operates in a similar
manner, as shown in Figure 14.23. The falling-film evaporator is the simplest and most
commonly used type of film-evaporator in which the liquid flows under gravitational force
as a thin film on the inside of heated vertical tubes and the resulting vapour normally
flows co-currently with the liquid in the centre of the tubes. A complete evaporator stage
consists of the evaporator, a separator to separate the vapours from the residual liquid, and
a condenser. Where high evaporation ratios are required, part of the concentrated liquid
is recycled back to the evaporator inlet in order to ensure that the tubes are sufficiently
wetted. An essential part of every falling film evaporator is the liquid distribution system
since the liquid feed must not only be evenly distributed to all the tubes, but also form