Freeze-Drying

Application ID: 3924


Freeze-drying, or lyophilization, is a process for drying heat-sensitive substances such as foods, blood plasma, and antibiotics. The wet substance is frozen and then, through sublimation, ice (or some other frozen solvent) is removed in the presence of a high vacuum.

This example models the process of ice sublimation in a vial under vacuum-chamber conditions, a test case for many freeze-drying setups.

The model uses the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method to compute the coupled heat and mass balances on a moving mesh attached to the advancing vapor-ice interface.

This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: