Flexible Heaters Save the Day for Freeze Dryers
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Freeze dryers serve an essential purpose in manufacturing. The process removes moisture while still preserving the ingredients in a product. It’s used in foods and pharmaceuticals, extending the shelf life without affecting their integrity.
Freeze-drying equipment has sensitive components that need regular maintenance and protection. Flexible heaters bring a thin, customizable design that can protect sensitive components. Recently, Hi-Heat helped a manufacturer extend the life of their freeze dryers by creating a custom heater that allowed it to do its job without impacting the materials used in the process.
How Freeze Dryers Work
We often work with manufacturers struggling with aging equipment. In a recent case, a company noticed its lyophilizer showed aging signs. Its components were brittle and shorting out. They were also having issues with their electrical pass-throughs.
The lyophilizer is crucial to the freeze-drying process. A lyophilizer is a complicated piece of equipment. Its components include a vacuum chamber, condenser, and hollow shelves that cycle heat transfer fluid to heat and cool the product as needed.
Heat is required to keep lyophilizers at peak performance. These heaters serve to manage temperature during the freeze-drying process. This helps optimize your manufacturing processes by keeping things consistent.
Benefits of Silicone Rubber
If you need a flexible heater for a lyophilizer manufacturing process, your priority will be the fit. The heater needs a slim profile to slide into place, but it must also be custom-sized for the equipment.
Silicone rubber heaters feature a slim profile and the heat control necessary for freeze dryers. Several features make silicone rubber flexible heaters ideal for lyophilizers. Here are the top benefits you’ll get from silicone rubber.
Extreme flexibility
Your heater needs to be able to fit within the lyophilizer’s shelves. Silicone rubber not only features a slim profile but can be custom-made to fit within curved spaces. The thickness ranges from only 0.030 inches to 0.060 inches, with a low wattage output per square inch.
You can also customize your heater’s width and length to fit your manufacturing needs. We can manufacture a prototype to ensure the heater will work for your application.
Superior temperature range
Silicone rubber heaters can operate in the extreme temperatures that lyophilizers generate. They can tolerate temperatures from -80°F to 500°F. That means it will withstand the many freezing and heating processes over the equipment’s life cycle.
Although a silicone rubber heater is thin, it offers superior heat output. It evenly distributes heat, eliminating temperature inconsistencies affecting product quality.
Moisture resistance
Freeze drying removes moisture from products to preserve them for storage or shipping. This means that the lyophilizer needs to be able to withstand constant exposure to moisture. The heater is no exception. The material must shield the electronics to keep them operating at peak performance.
Silicone rubber heaters can endure moisture and a range of chemicals, including those found in the environment. This allows manufacturers to install the heater with complete confidence that it will do its job.
Shock and vibration resistance
The natural vibration during manufacturing can damage the sensitive components inside a piece of equipment. Even if you lessen the vibrations, someone could bump the equipment and jar the parts.
Silicone rubber is both impact- and vibration-resistant. The material itself remains stable but also insulates the electronics within.
Types of Silicone Rubber Heaters
There are two types of silicone rubber heaters, each with its benefits. It’s essential to compare the two to ensure you’re getting the right solution for your needs.
Etched foil
An etched foil silicone rubber heater may be the best option if you have specific design needs. It features a nickel-alloy foil etched into a pattern and vulcanized into a silicone rubber sheath.
This design promotes even heat transfer, allowing it to warm a large surface area. It also uses less energy to generate that heat, making it an efficient option. Engineers can reproduce complex circuits, which means that etched foil may be best for more demanding designs.
Wire wound
Wire-wound flexible heaters use nickel-chromium alloy. We use precision winding equipment to spiral the wire to create a strong but flexible core. The equipment creates a consistent fiberglass twine core, ensuring an efficient build. Then, we encase the core in rubber.
Wire-wound silicone heaters are better for smaller orders. They are cheaper to engineer than etched foil if you aren’t ordering in bulk. They also take less time to engineer, so wire-wound is the better option if you need a tight turnaround.
Whether building or repairing freeze dryers, silicone rubber heaters are durable; they provide reliable temperature control and resistance to impact and moisture. We offer a variety of flexible heaters, including etched-foil and wire-wound silicone rubber.
