che_december-2024 - 37

Chem Chronicles
A Look Back on 80 years of Thin-Film Evaporation
By: Christian Eickhoff, Buss-SMS-Canzler GmbH
ighty years ago, in 1944, Dr.
Hans Müller from Winterthur,
Switzerland filed a patent application
for a device designed to
process liquid substances at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual
Property in Bern. Liquids prone
to fouling on heated surfaces, as
well as thermally sensitive or viscous
substances, have always
presented significant challenges in
thermal processing.
Müller's original patent describes
E
the
thin-film
evaporator
as follows:
" ...A device for processing liquid
substances, characterized by a vertical
heated cylinder and an internal
stirrer that distributes the liquid
along the inner wall of the treatment
zone, moving it along the heating
surface with rigid blades mounted
on a rotor. "
The patent for a vertical cylindrical
thin-film evaporator with a rigidblade
rotor was granted in 1947.
Recognizing its immense potential,
Luwa AG, based in Zürich, acquired
the patent. Subsequently, a pilot
plant was established in Zürich, and
the first machines were manufactured
in Muri, Switzerland. To this
day, this type of thin-film evaporator
is globally recognized under the
name LUWA evaporator.
In 1919, Richard Samesreuther
founded Samesreuther & Co. GmbH
in Butzbach, Hesse, Germany. Initially,
the company specialized in repairing
or manufacturing locomotive
fireboxes using a patented copperwelding
process. Later, it expanded
into producing apparatus for high
operating
pressures from special
materials for the chemical manufacturing
industry. These included the
company's patented Samka ranges
of full- and half-pipe heating coils
and dimple jackets.
In 1952, Samesreuther & Co.
GmbH signed a contract with Farbenfabriken
Bayer AG to manufacture
and distribute a vertical
cylindrical thin-film evaporator with
movable metallic wiper blades,
known as the Sambay evaporator.
A third type of thin-film evaporator
was introduced in 1957 by Carl
Canzler KG in Düren, Germany. This
design employed a rotor with movable
graphite wiper blades and was
used in both thin-film and shortpath
evaporators. Carl Canzler KG
acquired a license for this design
from Arthur Smith of Rochester,
N.Y., and marketed it under the
name Rotafilm with Smith Rotor.
In 1964, Samesreuther & Co.
GmbH became Samesreuther
Müller Schuss GmbH (SMS), leading
to the formation of Luwa-SMS
GmbH in 1972. Since then, LUWA
evaporators have been produced
alongside Sambay evaporators at
the Butzbach facility. Following the
acquisition by Buss AG in 1983,
the company was renamed BussSMS
GmbH Verfahrenstechnik,
and the current name, Buss-SMSCanzler
GmbH, was adopted after
the merger with Canzler GmbH in
Düren in 2003.
Building on the foundation of
these vertical, cylindrical thin-film
evaporators, numerous additional
machines for the thermal treatment
of mixtures that are difficult
to handle (due to heat sensitivity
or extreme viscosity, for example)
have been developed. All of these
machines operate on the same basic
principle: processing a continuously
flowing thin film of product,
influenced mechanically, with short
residence time and indirect heat
transfer. These include vertical and
horizontal conical thin-film evaporators,
short-path evaporators, thinfilm
evaporators for highly viscous
materials, and vertical and horizontal
thin-film dryers.
Thin-film evaporation technology
has continued to advance over the
past 80 years. Additionally, modern
capabilities in process and mechanical
engineering - including computational
fluid dynamics (CFD),
discrete-element and finite-element
methods, and process simulation
software - as well as more precise
and efficient manufacturing
techniques for various materials,
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING WWW.CHEMENGONLINE.COM
DECEMBER 2024
FIGURE 1. The original patent for thin-film evaporation
technology was filed in Switzerland in 1944.
The technology is now widely used in industrial
separations, including distillation, concentration,
stripping, deodorizing, degassing and more
(Image courtesy of Buss-SMS-Canzler GmbH)
enable the development of optimal,
customized solutions for nearly any
specific application.
Drawing on over 13,000 documented
trials conducted at former
laboratories and pilot plants in Zürich,
Butzbach, Düren and the current facility
in Pratteln, Buss-SMS-Canzler
GmbH has designed and manufactured
nearly 7,000 rotating thermalseparation
machines.
■
Edited by Mary Page Bailey
Further reading
1. Evaporators: Design Concepts and Equipment Selection, Chem.
Eng., January 2020, pp. 27-38.
2. Evaporators: Energy Conservation Strategies and Process
Control, Chem. Eng., October 2020, pp. 41-43.
3. Heat Transfer in Wiped-Film Evaporators, Chem. Eng., November
2016, pp. 44-47.
4. Improve Efficiency with Better Evaporation and Drying Equipment,
Chem. Eng., September 2015, pp. 26-31.
37
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