Hybrid Process for extraction of flavours and agents

Extrac­tion of flavours and ingre­di­ents from nat­ur­al sources face a ris­ing demand. How­ev­er, dis­solv­ing of non-volatile essen­tial oils from crop and the con­sec­u­tive sep­a­ra­tion of from waste do require sev­er­al dif­fer­ent apparatus.
In con­trast, Eka­to Sys­tems offers a sim­ple but pow­er­ful com­bi­na­tion of its Unim­ix SRC (used as the dis­solv­ing blender), and its Solid­mix VPT (used for drying):

• Unim­ix SRC: effi­cient mix­ing, dis­solv­ing and pre-evaporation
• Solid­mix VPT: effi­cient vac­u­um con­tact drying
• Max­i­mum yield at short batch times.

Usu­al­ly, flavours and agents can be obtained from nat­ur­al sources by extrac­tion. Active ingre­di­ents are dis­solved in a sol­vent and puri­fied. The resid­u­als are fil­trat­ed and either dis­posed of or re-used for fur­ther pro­cess­ing. For Eka­to Sys­tems how­ev­er, a per­fect mix­ing in com­bi­na­tion with a vac­u­um con­tact dry­er is the smarter solu­tion – only 2 machines with high­est process flexibility.

Dissolving and pre-evaporation

The Unim­ix SRC blender allows the intense con­tact of prod­ucts in dif­fer­ent forms (Chips, flakes, gran­ules) with the sol­vent. The high speed homog­e­niz­er in the Unim­ix SRC acts as both shear device and crusher.

• Once mixed well, the sep­a­ra­tion of solids is the next task. The Eka­to Sys­tems con­cept is based on ther­mal evap­o­ra­tion (and re-condensation)

Built as a heat­ed vac­u­um and pres­sure ves­sel for high vis­cous prod­ucts (fea­tur­ing the Eka­to Par­avisc impeller designed for best heat trans­fer), the SRC allows a pre-evap­o­ra­tion of the flavour loaded solvent.

• Evap­o­ra­tion will increase the vis­cos­i­ty. The slur­ry is trans­ferred via a fil­ter to the Solid­mix VPT for the final dry­ing step.

The Solid­mix VPT heat­ed vac­u­um con­tact dry­er evap­o­rates the sol­vent in the ini­tial dry­ing phase (pasty con­sis­tence) and lat­er dur­ing the tran­si­tion phase from paste-to-sol­id with a fine pow­der as a fin­ished product.

• The sol­vents are recov­ered in the Eka­to vac­u­um system.

Nat­ur­al prod­ucts vary in their tex­ture, com­po­si­tion and flow behav­iour. Prod­uct recipes require a flex­i­ble, mul­ti-pur­pose appa­ra­tus. The Eka­to Sys­tems equip­ment is a sym­bio­sis of proven tech­nol­o­gy from both liq­uids mix­ing and solids dry­ing. Eka­to Sys­tems offers sup­port in the process devel­op­ment, includ­ing small scale and pilot test­ing in the Eka­to Sys­tems lab­o­ra­to­ry. If required, addi­tion­al tasks such as fil­tra­tion or thin film evap­o­ra­tion can be simulated.

• All crit­i­cal aspects of pro­cess­ing nat­ur­al prod­ucts are iden­ti­fied in the lab and will influ­ence the design of the appa­ra­tus – pri­or to the full scale investment.