Freeze drying (which is also called lyophilization), is a technique targeting to dry the product under a vacuum pump at low temperature by a process called sublimation. The intention of freeze-drying is to preserve its physical form by removing the moisture contained within the product. This helps to maintain the product’s appearance and its characteristics. The process goes through a vacuum pump which evaporates the water content thus skipping the liquid phase directly into the gaseous state. The absence of the water component minimizes the degradation process which directly helps the product to be stored over a longer period avoiding the oxidation and risk of infections.

Freeze-drying is beneficial to those sensitive products that are exposed to the oxidation process. In terms of food applications, freeze-drying can help to preserve the food’s quality like its looks, flavors and smell and making it lightweight, as well as ensuring essential vitamins and nutrients being retained. In addition, these foods are sealed to prevent reabsorption of moisture which inhibits the action of bacteria and enzymes that is instrumental towards spoilage even at room temperature. In the cosmetic industry, the process of lyophilization helps to prepare the beauty masks, hair dyes and supports for face creams.

The trend of moving forward from traditional oil-filled vacuum pumps to the advances of new dry vacuum technology due to the possibility of the hydrocarbon contamination to the freeze-dried products. Also, with the capability of better energy-saving technology from the dry vacuum pump, and longer life-span especially in terms of maintenance, this helps to drive this process towards cleaner and greener solutions for tomorrow.

It is an ideal application to preserve those heat-sensitive materials like proteins, microbes, biological sides like tissues and plasma. Also, temperature-sensitive vaccines, antibiotics, and bacteria contained in vials and syringes are freeze-dried for storage but can be dissolved within seconds.

In the beauty industries, more and more natural and raw forms of ingredients are being excavated. The preservation of qualities of the active ingredients capability resulting from lack of additional preservatives application and longer shelf life makes it even more ideal. Those ingredients that are unstable in the solution can now be formulated and stored in dry states.

As the society is getting more affluent with more people able to adopt pets, the modern freeze-drying process has expanded into new markets like pet foods, offering a much healthier alternative for pet lovers.

A typical setup for freeze-drying involves some basic components like process chamber, refrigeration system, condenser, and the vacuum pump. With the introduction of the oil-free dry pump technology, the risk of oil back-streaming to the chamber thereby contaminating the freeze-dried products are eliminated. Besides, the dry pump offers additional benefits like low vibration levels, better and more intelligent power saving capability and better foot-print. In terms of pumping speed or lower pressure concern, the pump can be coupled with an additional booster. 

All of the abovementioned benefits of using the dry pump can be easily achieved by the introduction of Hanbell dry vacuum pumps.

Hanbell had achieved great success in this freeze-drying segment which provides the most suitable applications with respect to the customers’ stringent requirements.

For more information, you may visit Hanbell Vacuum’s site.