Evaporation Equipment

Design systems customized to client and facility needs for evaporators used in an array of industries.

Custom Evaporation Solutions

RCM Thermal Kinetics offers a wide range of evaporator styles that are utilized in many industries. With a focus on energy conservation, we take your specifications and design a system customized to the needs of the facility.

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Evaporation Equipment & Technology

Evaporation technology is used in any process that requires concentration of a stream by removal of water or other solvent. The process of evaporation is energy-intensive; any evaporator system design approach needs to take great consideration into the heat recovery philosophy and overall utility usage of the final system design. Product characteristics also need to be considered in the system design; many product characteristics can be altered in an evaporation process, especially in Food and Beverage applications.

Evaporator Industries & Applications

Our team at RCM Thermal Kinetics have experience delivering systems across multiple industries. Learn more about Evaporators and their applications, types and designs below as our engineers share their knowledge and expertise.

Chemical Production
Food and Beverage
Pharmaceutical Production
Agricultural Chemical Production
Pulp and Paper
Oil and Gas
Fuel Ethanol

Chemical Plant Waste Systems
Removal of Solvents from Oils
Cannabinoid Oil Refining
Pharmaceutical Product Recovery from Waste Streams
Gelatin Production
Concentration of Sugar Solutions
Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) Production
Sulfuric Acid Production
Phosphoric Acid Production
Brewery Waste Concentration Systems
Chemical Recovery in Metal Plating processes

Types of Evaporators

There are several varieties of evaporator designs commonly used throughout different industry sectors. The selection of the appropriate design is based on many factors that consider the efficiency of the system and the appropriate use of a specific evaporator type to maintain final required product characteristics. Within the framework of the system design is the selection of the appropriate equipment within the design. The main piece of equipment used at the heart of the evaporation process is the evaporative heat exchanger. The varied system designs can utilize different technologies within the evaporator system. The two main technologies used in an evaporator design by RCM Thermal Kinetics include:

A shell and tube heat exchanger is used to drive the evaporation process. The specific detailed design of the shell and tube results in a variety of evaporator system configurations that include:

Falling Film Evaporator
Rising Falling Film Evaporator
Flash Evaporator
Forced Circulation Evaporator

As the name suggests, a plate evaporator uses a plate heat exchanger in the system design to drive the evaporation process. It offers several benefits over a tubular design.

The plate heat exchanger is relatively easy to disassemble, inspect, and clean.
Depending on the process fluids, a higher heat transfer coefficient is achieved.
The compact heat exchanger area reduces the overall system size and headroom requirement
Lower installation cost

Selecting the Right Evaporator

With so many factors to analyze, it may seem very daunting to select a suitable evaporator for your specific industry and application. RCM Thermal Kinetics is here to help you navigate the evaporator selection process from start to finish. We provide a wide-ranging selection of evaporators, industrial distillation equipment, and industrial scrubbing equipment.

If you’d like to learn more about the products and services we offer, reach out to us today to request a quote.

Evaporator System Design

The forced circulation evaporator design is used in several configurations in industrial crystallizer applications. A wide range of industrial chemicals and inorganic salts require robust crystallizing evaporation systems. The feed fluid is introduced into the system and is recirculated and heated to the boiling point. Over time, the product is gradually concentrated in the system until the required concentration and crystal size parameters are achieved. The size of the crystal is a function of the residence time (RT) allowable by the size of the vessel. It is advantageous to run a testing protocol in the design phase to determine the optimum RT associated with the desired crystal size.

Film Evaporators

Film evaporators are among the most cost-effective evaporation systems in use today. They also provide very high heat transfer coefficients (HTCs). However, they can have a greater fouling propensity when compared to forced circulation evaporators which may limit their effectiveness in some applications.

Falling Film Tubular Evaporators

A falling film evaporator has a short product residence time and offers efficient heat transfer. In the operation of a falling film evaporator, fluid is pumped to the top of the heat exchanger and is evenly distributed across the tubesheet and into the heat transfer area. Proper wetting of the heat transfer area is required to maintain the dynamics of the evaporation process. Improper wetting from low flow or maldistribution into the tubes results in dry spots and fouling inside the tubes.

Because of the efficiency of the falling film design, it is commonly used in large systems since the required heat transfer area is reduced, thereby reducing overall system cost. The low difference in steam and product temperature (ΔT) allows for a greater usefulness of the multiple effect evaporator design philosophy. It is not uncommon to see 5–7 effect falling film evaporator designs.

A derivation on the falling film evaporator design that is useful for limiting overall system height is the rising/falling film design. RCM Thermal Kinetics employs a proprietary rising/falling evaporator design. Along with the reduction in height, an added benefit is the elimination for additional pumping head and piping used in a falling film evaporator design. RCM Thermal Kinetics’ proprietary design works as follows:

A small portion of the tubes in the evaporative heat exchanger is used in the rising pass.
This initial boiling pass generates a high velocity two-phase stream of liquid and vapor.
The two-phase stream self-distributes across the tube sheet to the falling film pass.
As a result, fouling and plugging at the top tube sheet is greatly mitigated.

One of the early “modern” evaporator designs, a rising film evaporator utilizes either a plate heat exchanger or a vertical shell and tube heat exchanger with process fluid in the tubes. As the liquid boils, it creates a film on the inside of the plate or tube as a consequence of the vapor volume generated. As with any film style design, the resulting increased heat transfer coefficient improves efficiency, which results in a reduction of heat transfer area required. The system hydraulics offer an advantage for processing more viscous products. Rising film evaporators provide compact designs that offer very simple operation compared to other designs.

Evaporation is an energy intense process. In the design process, careful consideration must be taken to use a design that is not only appropriate for the fluid being processed but also considerate to energy conservation.

Multiple Effect Evaporation

The entire evaporator duty (amount of water or solvent being removed) can be segregated into multiple evaporator effects. The segregation of the duty is combined with a pressure gradient across the entire evaporator to allow for reuse of energy in the system. The figure shows how the multiple effect design concept functions. In essence, the steam economy of the system is linear to the amount of effects used in a design. Depending on process limitations, multiple effect designs are typically limited to approximately 7 effects.

Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR)

MVR designs utilize a compression device to increase the pressure of the process vapor and reuse it as the heating medium for the evaporator. Typical mechanical devices used in an MVR design are: centrifugal fans, compressors, and blowers. MVR designs can theoretically provide the efficiency of 100 equivalent effects of a multiple effect evaporator design. The cost of electricity to drive the compression is a factor in the equivalent effect comparison.

Our goal remains to offer the best process solutions that contribute to our clients’ success, add value to their operations, and protect our community and environment.
Christopher J Brown, Founder of Thermal Kinetics

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