Method and apparatus for freeze-drying of foods, medicaments, etc.

#a) Field of the Invention

#This invention relates to a method for freeze-drying of foodstuffs, medicaments, etc. to obtain such products in their desiccated form by first adjusting the starting materials for such foodstuffs, medicaments, etc. in their liquid form, and then freeze-drying such liquid material into the final desiccated powder products. This invention is also concerned with a system for attaining such freeze-drying of foodstuffs, medicaments, and so forth.

#b) Description of Prior Arts

#In the accompanying drawing:

#FIG. 1 is a schematic developed diagram for explaining, respectively, the step of adjusting starting materials into a required liquid material; the step of distributive feeding of the thus adjusted liquid material into desiccating vessels; the step of desiccating the liquid material by loading the desiccating vessels into the freeze-drying device; and the step of crushing and comminuting the thus desiccated product, after completion of its desiccation, by removing the desiccating vessels out of the freeze-drying device, and throwing the desiccated product, which has been solidified and adhered onto the interior of the vessels, into a grinding device to render the same to be fine powder product;

#FIG. 2 is a longitudinal cross-sectional view showing the principal part of the shell-tube type freeze-drying device to be used for the practice of the present invention;

#According to the present invention, the installation for carrying out the step of adjusting the starting materials to adjust the same into a liquid material of a predetermined composition (here, taking an installation for carrying out the step of rendering the starting materials to be the liquid material of a predetermined composition, where a medicinal composition is processed into desiccated powder product, as an example) may be such that, as has been done conventionally, a plurality of blending tanks a, a, . . . and an adjusting tank b are installed within a clean room, as shown by the block diagram enclosed by the double-dot-and-dash line (I) in FIG. 1, to be maintained at a predetermined degree of cleanliness in accordance with the laws and regulations, in the clean room of which the weighing of the starting materials and the charging of the thus weighed starting materials into the blending tanks a, a, . . . are carried out by human hands, through the charging port 10 of each of them; that a predetermined quantity of distilled water, as the solvent, was further poured into these blending tanks a, a, . . . ; that agitators 11, 11, . . . which are additionally provided in these blending tanks a, a, . . . are then actuated by driving the motors 12, 12, . . . to blend the starting materials and the solvent into the liquid material having the adjusted composition; that the thus adjusted liquid materials are subsequently charged into the adjusting tank b by human hands through the feeding port 20 of the adjusting tank b, with further addition of distilled water in a predetermined quantity; that the agitator 21 provided in this adjusting tank b is subsequently operated by driving the motor 22, thereby preparing the liquid material into slurry of a predetermined composition; that, as soon as preparation of the slurry is completed, it is pumped out of the bottom part of the adjusting tank b by actuating the pump P; and that the thus pumped out slurry is forwarded into the next distributive pouring (feeding) step through the pipeline c provided with a sterilized filter, and connected to the outlet port of the pump P.

#In this case, the freeze-drying device f to be used for lyophilizing this liquid material, which has been prepared in the adjusting tank b, is of a shell-tube type freeze-drying device f.

#This type of freeze-drying apparatus was previously invented and developed by the applicant of this application filed in Japan, and already patented under Japanese Patent No. 1788379 (Japanese Patent Publn. No. 4-78909), wherein a cooling surface of the freeze-drying device, having its dual function to serve as the heating surface for supplying heat to the material to be freeze-dried, is constructed in a vertical tube (cylinder) extending along the vertical plane, and a partition wall of the desiccating chamber to accommodate therein the vertical tubes is made to conform to the vertical shell (cylindrical body), thereby enabling the inner bore of the shell as the desiccating chamber to be communicatively connected to a vacuum exhaust system so as to make it evacuable into the vacuum, and, at the same time, to be communicatively connected to a trapping chamber, in which a trap (a vapor condenser) is provided to maintain the vacuum condition by collecting water vapor which is sublimated from the material to be desiccated due to heating, thereby causing the thus adjusted liquid material to be adhered onto the inner wall surface or the outer wall surface of the tube, in the form of a frozen layer, followed by desiccating this frozen layer.