Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids – Apparatus – With means to treat gas or vapor
Patent
1991-03-22
1992-10-13
Bennet, Henry A.
Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids
Apparatus
With means to treat gas or vapor
34218, 62447, F26B 2106
Patent
active
051540088
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention has for its object a novel installation for transporting and/or storing products sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity.
The present invention thus has two principal fields of application: storage and transport.
More precisely, the invention allows various storage installations to be produced, such as for example silos, stores, warehouses, etc. and transport installations such as for example large-dimensioned containers, bastard containers, crates, bags, cardboard boxes, packing cases, etc.
The products likely to be stored and/or transported, within the framework of the invention, are, on the one hand, powdery or granular products, such as in particular foodstuffs such as cocoa, and, on the other hand, any object or equipment sensitive to heat and demanding a limited hygrometry.
Within the particular domain of transport, the invention allows the transport of a very extensive range of goods between two countries whose local temperatures are very different.
Up to the present time, the transport of tropical agricultural products from producer countries with hot, damp climate towards consumer countries with temperate or cold climate, is inevitably accompanied by physical phenomena of desorption, adsorption and condensation, i.e. of transfer of humidity within the relatively closed volume constituted for example by a container or crate.
These physical phenomena are the origin of serious deteriorations of the products transported.
Certain systems set up in specialized containers, such as natural ventilation, double partition, double floor, false ceiling, absorbent material, etc. have been able to limit, slow down or delay the phenomena of desorption, but none has given entire satisfaction nor enabled the deteriorations in quality ascertained at arrival, particularly in the case of cocoa, to be avoided.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the drawbacks set forth hereinabove, by proposing an installation for transporting and/or storing products sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity, of novel design, which makes it possible to avoid any degradation of the products even when the latter undergo, in time, considerable changes in temperature and/or humidity
The invention is based on the application of the following three principles:
1. Regulate the heat transfers of the contents-container assembly, so that the temperature of the contents always remains higher than the humid temperature of the air (or of a neutral gas) in movement;
2. Use the movements of convection of the air (or a neutral gas) for transporting the calories and humidity of the mass of the contents towards a selected point of the container;
3. Reheat and dry the saturated air (or a neutral gas) before it comes into contact again with the product, by means of a heat exchanger.
More precisely, the solution according to the invention, to solve the technical problem raised, consists in an installation for transporting and/or storing products sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity, located in an environment of air or neutral gas undergoing movements of convection resulting in particular from variations in temperature, such as in particular foodstuffs such as cocoa, characterized in that it comprises:
a heat-insulated inner enclosure 1 which contains said products, having in its upper and lower parts at least one opening 2, 3 to allow air or a neutral surrounding gas to circulate through said inner enclosure 1;
an outer enclosure 5 surrounding said inner enclosure 1, which is heat-insulated with the exception of at least one part of its side walls, for example the lower part; and
means for treating the air or neutral gas circulating through the inner enclosure 1 in order to reduce the relative humidity of the air or neutral gas entering the inner enclosure, preferably to a value less than the relative humidity of the air-product equilibrium.
The present invention thus makes it possible, for the first time, to master and order the physical phenomena of air/product equilibrium, avoiding the reduction
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