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:
however, additional products may be required to completely define and model it. Furthermore, this example may also be defined and modeled using components from the following product combinations:
- COMSOL Multiphysics® and
- Heat Transfer Module and
- either the Battery Design Module, CFD Module, Chemical Reaction Engineering Module, Corrosion Module, Electrochemistry Module, Electrodeposition Module, Fuel Cell & Electrolyzer Module, Microfluidics Module, Porous Media Flow Module, or Subsurface Flow Module
The combination of COMSOL® products required to model your application depends on several factors and may include boundary conditions, material properties, physics interfaces, and part libraries. Particular functionality may be common to several products. To determine the right combination of products for your modeling needs, review the Specification Chart and make use of a free evaluation license. The COMSOL Sales and Support teams are available for answering any questions you may have regarding this.