A wiped film evaporation line has been installed and commissioned in Israel, where it recovers solvent from a fine chemical production stream. The project replaced a distillation column that had become a bottleneck because of long batch times and high energy consumption.

Project Highlights

The customer wanted to recover a high-boiling solvent from a viscous residue without degrading either component. Continuous wiped film evaporation allowed the residue to be processed at low temperature and short residence time, keeping the recovered solvent within specification.

  • 150 kg/h feed capacity with continuous discharge of concentrate
  • 96% solvent recovery with less than 0.5% solvent left in the residue
  • Jacket temperatures up to 250 °C using thermal oil heating
  • Fully automated start-up, shut-down and cleaning sequences

Results After Start-Up

Following a five-day commissioning period, the line reached guaranteed recovery at design throughput. Energy consumption per tonne of recovered solvent fell by approximately 40% against the previous column, and operator involvement was reduced to routine checks.

“The evaporator paid for itself faster than we projected. The recovered solvent goes straight back into production.” — Plant Manager, Israeli Customer

Wiped film evaporators, short path distillation systems and molecular distillation units are supplied from laboratory to industrial scale.