A STUDY OF CLOSED CYCLE DRYING FOR THE COATED FILM WITH ORGANIC SOLVENT ON THE CONTINUOUS SHEET MATERIALS

The conventional drying of the coated film with organic solvent on continuous sheet materials is usually performed in open or one pass drying system using air as the drying medium. The concentration of evaporated organic solvent in the drying system must be low enough to prevent explosion and large volume of off gas from dryer to solvent recovery system is required, resulting in poor heat economy for all the plant

To improve the heat economy of the plant it had been proposed to use a closed cycle drying system, where an inert gas, e.g. nitrogen, is used as the drying medium. High concentration of the organic solvent in the recycle gas mixture may then be used, which results in smaller volume of recycle gas and possibility of applying an inexpensive solvent recovery system of dehumidification. This investigation includes two important problems to realize the closed cycle drying

(1)Measurement of solvent (toluene) evaporation rate from coated film in the gas mixture of toluene andnitrogen over a wide range of toluene/nitrogen ratios (0-1.0) and drying temperature using bench scaleapparatus

(2)Development of a contactless sealing method, using an inert gas, for closed cycle drying of continuoussheet materials. The results of preliminary tests demonstrate its feasibility.