APPLICATIONS There are many applications of spray dryer in the industry.

They have been adopted for a wide variety of products such as milk, eggs, yeasts, sugar solutions, coffee extracts and also vegetables extracts, fruit juices and blood plasma; high throughputs can easily be accommodated. One of the common applications is in pharmaceutical field. Although only focusing only in this field, but there are many applications involved. Spray dryer have the effect on powder properties. Rotary atomizers produce more uniform particle sizes compared to pressure atomizers. Co-current dryers produce powders with lower bulk densities than counter current dryers. In granulation, spray dried granulation has improved flow, better distribution of drug colours and also requires less lubricant than wet massed products. It really important in resulting of shell of concentrated binder at the surface of the granular material, providing strong tablets and maximum use of binder. The bioavailability is one of the applications of spray dryer. Besides that, encapsulation is another application. With concurrent drier, heat exposure is minimized. The product is usually recovered about 15 oC below the outlet temperature. Microencapsulation of products such as antibiotics, vaccines, peptides and proteins is one of the applications. Spray dryer also applied in inhalation where highly specialized spray drying nozzles that give increased particle engineering capabilities even on large scale making it possible to accurately manipulate aerodynamic particle size and properties.

Lastly, spray dryer is applied in controlling the released products. it creates a shell-like structure around the granular allows spray drying to be used for the manufacture of controlled-release products. ADVANTAGES Spray dryer has a lot of advantages and that is why this equipment is widely used in the industry. There are several reasons why spray dryer is used. Firstly, is because of its particle size control. Dry particle size can be easily controlled by atomization of the liquid feed and the design of the hot gas inlet. It can increase yields for products that require classification. Spray dryers can typically produce 20 to 500 micron average particles size in a bell shaped distribution. Apart from that, the shape of most spray dryer particles is spherical; provides for fluid-like flow properties. This makes many downstream operations such as packaging, pressing, filtering and handling easier and less costly. Another advantage of spray dryers is the homogenous solid mixture produced. it produced the most homogenous product for multi-component solutions and slurries. The chemical composition of every particle is the same. The evaporative cooling of the product is another advantage. In the air, heat and mass transfer occur. Hence, vapour films the surrounding the droplet. It keeps the particles at the saturation temperature. Furthermore, spray dryer only need a short residence time. Atomization of the liquid feed causes the surface area are produced, enables short gas residence time that ranging from 3.40 seconds depending upon the application which permits spray drying without thermal degradation. There are fast turn-around times and product changes as there is no product hold up in the spray drying equipment.

Lastly is its advantage of reduction in corrosion potential. Spray dryer is a gas suspended process, so the dry chamber remains dry by design. Therefore, there are many corrosive materials can be processed with carbon steel as the primary material of construction of the spray dryer chamber that reduces capital costs. DISADVANTAGES Spray dryer is often used in large scale production of food. The problem is fruit and flavouring powders are often sticking to the walls of the dryers during the spray drying process. This can cost pharmaceutical money in cleaning costs and lost produce. Besides that, small scale spray dryer used in the laboratory is not performing as well as big scale spray dryer. PRECAUTION For a given degree of atomization the diameter must be sufficiently large to ensure that the droplets do not hit the wall before they are dry. At the other extreme, it should not be so large that the atomization and matching flow of hot gas are not under control; this would result in a non-uniform interaction between the air and the particles. During the process of spray drying, do not touch the drying chamber as it is very hot.

REFERENCE Ranken M.D, Kill R.C, Baker C.G.J, 1997. Food Industries Manual 24th Edition. London: Blackie Academic and Professional.