Drying test center
Test. Perfect. Scale.
Our drying test center offers what we believe is an unparalleled range of equipment, expertise and support for designing and testing spray drying, fluid bed drying, and freeze drying processes for foods, beverages, chemicals and pharmaceuticals.
Test center for drying – bring your ideas to life
Whatever your drying challenges, stage of product and process development, or refinement, we’ll work with you to evaluate processes and configure equipment before you consider committing to high-value capital investment. We can assess process viability and efficiency, explore scale up, and investigate upgrading or improving existing processes for drying food ingredients, starches and proteins, dairy, pharmaceutical chemical and coffee powders. By working with GEA and our state-of-the-art equipment and digital tools you can have more confidence in making informed decisions, look to optimize recipes and processes for great product quality, and potentially shorten development timelines and costs.
Physical and virtual dryer testing for seamless processing
The GEA drying test center in Copenhagen is the largest of its kind, and houses more than 35 GEA plants for freeze drying, fluid bed drying and spray drying, and for powder handling. Our experts can also combine physical spray drying tests with virtual testing that harnesses the latest computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools. In close collaboration with other GEA technology centers, we have access to upstream processes including mixing, filtration, freeze concentration and heat treatment, allowing us to evaluate and configure a more complete, seamless drying line. For customers based in North America we offer dedicated spray drying testing at facilities at our site in Columbia, US.
Feasibility studies for drying different formulations
Conducting a feasibility study is the first step in evaluating any drying process. At our Test Center, we can help you assess whether a product can be dried, agglomerated, extracted, concentrated, and much more.
Pilot testing to aid drying process optimization
Pilot tests provide data and insights to help speed the design of a drying process for new or existing products and optimize or scale up existing production processes. Test plants are available for all major drying methods.
Analyzing powder characteristics and particle properties
Experienced and qualified personnel at our analytics laboratory evaluate how drying processes impact key product characteristics, such as total solids content, viscosity, and particle size distribution.
Virtual Spray Dryer Testing
The GEA Virtual Spray Dryer Testing platform, based on the latest computation fluid dynamics tools and advanced modelling, lets us simulate and gain deep insight into the performance of a spray drying process in all its complexity. We can use the virtual system to test, evaluate and fine tune spray drying configurations and operating parameters that it would be tricky, or prohibitively costly, to test using physical systems.
Virtual Spray Dryer Testing, at a glance:
- Can be applied to existing equipment and is associated with much lower risk than physical testing, saving on potential production losses, time and costs
- Let’s you quickly assess the likely consequences of any change to the spray dryer settings or design, giving you more confidence in decision making
- Gives you key insights that will inform on the best set up and fine-tuned configuration when designing new spray drying plants
- Has no impact on the day-to-day operation of a physical plant, so you don’t sacrifice production time and profits
Virtual Spray Dryer Testing
Drynetics flow modelling platform assesses drying kinetics
Advanced analytical capabilities at the GEA test center include our proprietary dynamic flow modelling platform, DRYNETICS®, which applies data generated using the single droplet drying system, DRYING KINETICS ANALYZER, to assess drying kinetics in detail. DRYNETICS® makes it possible to conduct early-stage tests using only a few milliliters of material, helping to minimize costs and ultimately reduce development timeframes. We can in addition transfer relevant data to our computational fluid dynamics simulations to further aid optimizing your process design.
Powder testing data supports optimal powder handling system configuration
Powder handling and transport can impact on and be affected by powder properties and performance. At our test center we can analyze powder compressibility, moisture content, flowability, fluidization behavior and more, to help us configure the best powder handling and, if required, transport systems for dairy, food ingredients and coffee powders.
A drying test center tailored to your application
Our test center is equipped with state-of-the-art drying technology and broad expertise, spanning a wide range of powder applications, including dairy and food ingredients, coffee products, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals. Explore some of the applications summarized below, and don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.
Send us a sample of your raw material or a prototype product, and we can configure and test a drying process that is tailored to your needs, and which can be scaled up for commercial manufacturing. Our extensive experience covers a variety of sample types, including solutions, slurries, pastes, filter cakes, and powders.
Dairy powders
GEA dairy drying plants are optimized to enhance product quality and characteristics, whether configured as a conventional set up, or alongside technologies including membrane filtration, high-shear mixing, or heat treatment
Freeze dried foods
We offer a suite of freeze drying equipment and expertise for configuring and evaluating scalable drying processes and upstream pretreatment stages for freeze drying coffee, fruits, vegetables, meat and bacterial cultures.
Instant coffee and cold brew
At our test center, we can measure extraction yield, identify optimal drying conditions, and simulate the full evaporation and freeze drying process as part of a complete line evaluation, from roasted beans to final product.
Food ingredients
Our experience spans drying a range of ingredients, including fruits and vegetables, non-dairy creamers, texturants, nutrients, and colors. We also offer systems for spray cooling emulsifiers and for flavor encapsulation.
Pharmaceutical powders
We offer services to help explore how spray drying can improve the properties of your drug formulation. Our expertise enables detailed particle characterization, aiding process development and supporting large-scale testing.
Chemical powders
In our laboratory we assess drying processes for water- and solvent-based solutions, suspensions, pastes, and filter cakes, to enable precise control of particle characteristics. We also offer closed-cycle drying systems.
(Hydrolyzed) proteins
We offer complete line testing for plant-based, hydrolyzed fish, and animal proteins. Our expertise spans every step from extraction, membrane filtration, heat treatment and homogenization right through to drying.
New food (cell-based)
Fermentation-derived ingredients are another key area of GEA knowhow, and we have extensive experience in freeze- and spray drying both fermented and precision-fermented products.
Starch and starch derivatives
We can test spray dry starch, modified starch, sweeteners, maltodextrin, oligosaccharides, and glucose syrup, and we also offer spray cooking technology for producing pregelatinized starch.
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Related Products
Conventional Spray Dryer
Cost effective single-stage dryer that can be upgraded to let you create a wide range of powders for industries as diverse chemicals and food ingredients
MSD® Spray Dryer
The MSD® Spray Dryer is the preferred choice for many dairy products such as e.g. Milk Powder and Nutritional Formula where uniform coarse, agglomerated, free-flowing and dustless powders are in great demand.
FSD® Spray Dryer
The NIRO FSD® spray dryer is an agile, efficient multi-stage spray dryer that is ideal for processing coarse, agglomerated and dustless powders.
PHARMA-SD® Spray Dryer
The comprehensive family of GEA NIRO PHARMA-SD® spray dryers offers the pharmaceutical, biotech, and associated contract manufacturing sectors a versatile, fully scalable line of GMP spray dryers for processing both small molecule pharmaceuticals and biologics.
Service Products
GEA SAFEXPERT®
The innovative process diagnostic and consultant service.
GEA Health Check Spray Dryer
Inadequate maintenance can lead to safety risks, lower product quality, costly repairs, and reduced equipment life. GEA Health Check Spray Dryer offers a thorough inspection and tailored service report to help you proactively maintain uptime, quality, and longevity.
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