Food lyophilisation

The quality of freeze-dried foods is making them increasingly popular. Most popular are dried fruit, spices and so-called expeditionary and military food. Lyophilisation gives a new space to molecular cuisine, but extends beyond the food industry, for example to drying flowers or scientific samples.

The processes are called Lyophilisation, sublimation-drying, or freeze-drying. The entire lyophilisation process can be carried out at temperatures up to 45 ° C in accordance with the RAW food diet conditions.

Our company responded to the demand for freeze-dried food by constructing the PD-series production lyophilisation chamber.

The chamber is about 0.96 m³ and the shelf area is 5.86 m².

The chamber has been designed from the outset for small series production. This gives it an excellent price / performance ratio. Other advantages are its small size, simple operation and very easy loading and unloading of the dried material.

Operation of the chamber is fully automatic, the control system enables easy intuitive operation and setting of unlimited number of individual drying programs.

Larger chambers are manufactured to order. The largest lyophilization chamber yet, which we built, has 5,7 cubic meters and the surface of drying racks is 54 square meters. The chamber is capable to dry over 1500 units of food servings in one batch.

Custom lyophilisation, process optimization

Extensive operational testing was required before the PD series production lyophilisation chambers could be included in the company's range. Therefore, free capacities for commercial lyophilisation are available.

Lyophilized materials:

• fruit - tropical, small, forest …
• vegetables
• herbs
• flowers
• young barley
• milk
• ready meals

Another of our services is optimizing the drying process. This knowledge is especially important for lyophilising larger amounts of material, where the drying cycles can be shortened by appropriate optimization while maintaining all the quality parameters.

Please contact us by phone or e-mail for more information about our capacity options and prices.

Chambers for the pharmaceutical industry

Experience gained as part of a project to rescue documents damaged by floods, subsequent scientific experiments, operations and service has led to cooperation with other subjects. Initially, our consultancy activities were directed to delivering an entire facility. Our company offers vacuum drying chambers and chambers with a protective atmosphere. The main users are pharmaceutical companies.

These devices are not mass produced but individually tailored to the customer’s requirements.

Unique heating panels and control systems have been developed for the needs of these vacuum chambers.

The customer receives uncompromised fulfilment of all the required technical requirements, perfect functionality and quality service.

We also do modifications to already existing equipment. In the picture are two VACUCELL units which we upgraded with duplex freezing unit, nitrogen atmosphere and higher control unit. The result is an automated service of drying and storing, archive of protocols and also reduction of drying cycle by several hours.

Vacuum chambers for special applications

Together with leading experts in preserving archival documents and damaged documents, our technicians developed and constructed a special device - a multi-purpose vacuum chamber for the National Library of the Czech Republic.

The development and construction of this chamber was funded by the American Foundation A. W. Mellon Foundation as part of an international project to save damaged documents after the floods in the Czech Republic in 2002. The Chamber was put into operation in August 2006.

The Multi-Purpose Vacuum Chamber is a world-unique device that allows restorers to dry, disinfect and subsequently acclimatize a wide range of documents (paper, bundles, books, wood, leather, etc.) using one of the well-known drying and preservation methods in one facility.

The Chamber significantly contributed to rescuing valuable documents damaged during the catastrophic floods and is still being intensively used by the National Library of the Czech Republic and also other institutions. In total, more than ten thousand documents have been saved using this device.

Multi-Purpose Vacuum Chamber on Czech Television (Time 1:16 and 4:35)

Kohout engineering s.r.o. contractually operates and further develops the device. Our specialists also cooperate on scientific projects and experiments such as research into methods to control wood-destroying insects in an oxygen-free atmosphere. Based on the experiments and new requirements, the chamber is constantly being improved

At present, this chamber is probably the most sophisticated facility for mass saving flood damaged documents in the world.

During the construction of the chamber, several original technical solutions with utility model protection were used.

Based on our many years of experience in developing, operating and servicing this technology, we can design and manufacture similar equipment according to the customer’s specific requirements.

Intelligent heating panels for heating, evaporation and vacuum drying

Electric heating panels have been specially developed for vacuum drying applications. The panels are constructed according to the specific requirements of the vacuum environment with emphasis on optimum heat transfer, the materials used and suitable electronic components.

Based on your requirements, we can provide individual solutions. The heating panels are available for any number of heating segments and their geometry.

Each heating panel is controlled by a microprocessor that receives the drying temperature requirements from the master control system, sends and continuously checks the current temperatures and controls its own heating process. The panel is divided into several independent segments, each with at least two digital temperature sensors and its own heating power switching circuit. The main advantages of this are that it ensures the required temperature distribution on the heating shelf and in the entire chamber and precise regulation of the set temperature. Monitoring current temperatures and instantaneous heating in all parts of the chamber allows the entire drying process to be optimized and perfectly controlled.

The main control system is outside the vacuum drying chamber and operates on the LINUX platform. The system checks and stores data; communicates with the PC operator and provides remote access via the Internet.

The system has independent temperature and relative humidity control sensors to monitor the technological process. The sensors can be placed directly on the dried material at any point in the drying chamber. The real parameters obtained are then used to control the course and optimize the drying processes.

Advantages of the intelligent heating panels:

• quality Czech product using top foreign components
• precise temperature control and uniform temperature distribution across the heating shelf and throughout the chamber
• individual solutions for different dimensions and configurations of heating surfaces
• remote access, operation monitoring and data archiving, printing reports
• the heating panels can be used in a wide range of applications, especially in the pharmaceutical and chemical industries