Thin film evaporators.

Mixtures of liquids can be separated by distillation into their individual components if they have different vapour pressures. However, heat sensitive components can break down if they are subjected to high temperatures. The level of breakdown increases exponentially with the temperature and in a linear manner with residence time.

Evaporation under pressure greatly reduces the boiling point. Thin film evaporation also achieves high transmission coefficients (which means machines with less area than traditional evaporators) and very low residence times (normally less than 1 minute). For this reason vacuum thin film evaporation is the most suitable process for concentrating heat sensitive products.