Present situation and development suggestions of drying equipment industry

At present, the conventional drying equipment needed in domestic market and the main drying equipment needed in international market can be basically manufactured in China, which shows that the history of China's drying equipment mainly imported has ended. But there are still some problems and worries. According to the prediction of China general machinery drying equipment industry association, in the next few years, China's chemical industry drying equipment demand will reach about 3000 sets (sets); the annual demand for pharmaceutical drying equipment will reach about 3000 sets (sets); the annual demand for agricultural and forestry, grain, light industry and other industries is expected to reach about 5000 sets. At present, China's drying equipment in the domestic market share has reached more than 80%.

It is estimated that during the Tenth Five Year Plan period, the domestic drying equipment will occupy more than 90% of the domestic market. At present, the existing problems are mainly manifested in two aspects: regional concentration and weak technological innovation ability. The distribution of enterprises is concentrated. Most of the production enterprises in China's drying equipment industry are gradually derived from the early enterprises of the industry, with relatively concentrated geographical location and serious defects in personnel structure. Up to now, the enterprises are mainly distributed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Liaoning and Heilongjiang. The enterprises in these areas account for almost 50% of the total number of the whole industry. In contrast, there are no drying equipment production enterprises in some regions of China. Fierce competition in the industry, some enterprises focus on immediate interests, lack of systematic development ideas, and slow improvement of overall quality, which seriously hinders the normal development of the industry. After the reform and opening up, especially in recent years, the potential of China's economic growth has been effectively released, the supply-demand relationship formed by the shortage economy has undergone a fundamental transformation, and the buyer's market has initially formed. Under the pressure of the buyer's market, some enterprises are catching up with the market rather than looking for and developing the market. Their energy is focused on the mature products with more market demand in the near future. Therefore, in the oven, vibrating fluidized bed, spray dryer and other products, the manufacturers are more concentrated, and the competition is fierce. There are few enterprises engaged in the development of drying equipment in the industry. The improvement of new products and the introduction of new products mainly rely on mutual imitation. It is suggested to adopt advanced technology to improve product quality. There is still a certain gap between China's drying equipment technology and the same industry in developed countries.

At present, medium and low-tech products are dominant in the market. After China's entry into WTO, more and more international counterparts will enter the domestic market. With the increasing international competition, we will face great competition pressure. World famous drying equipment manufacturers, such as Denmark's Nilu group, Japan's dachuanyuan Co., Ltd., have set up branches in China to seize the Chinese market. With the acceleration of economic globalization, more and more multinational companies will shift their target to the Chinese market. The increasingly fierce competition requires our enterprises to improve product quality through technological progress, absorbing foreign advanced technology and independent innovation. The idea of product development should focus on the large-scale equipment, the degree of automation control, the quality of equipment surface treatment, the selection of corrosion-resistant materials, and the development of multi-functional combination machine, so as to continuously extend the life cycle of products. Trade associations should organize more enterprises to participate in international technical exchanges, absorb new technological achievements, and accelerate the improvement of the technical level of the whole industry. To adjust the structure of enterprises and cultivate the core competitiveness of enterprises, the drying industry in China is characterized by small, weak, unskilled, large quantity but low overall quality; most enterprises are backward in management and fail to reach the appropriate scale economy, so they should be guided and coordinated by industry associations to change the situation of blind development. The relatively concentrated enterprises in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai can consider using joint venture, cooperation and acquisition to move to the central and western regions, so as to find a broader space for the survival and development of enterprises. Enterprises in the industry should take the road of strong alliance, and cultivate some large companies and enterprise groups with strong technical strength, famous brands and independent intellectual property rights. Form their own characteristics of products and services. The innovation ability of drying equipment manufacturers in China is low, and few enterprises can introduce new technologies and products with independent intellectual property rights, which is an important reason for the slow development of drying technology in China.

At present, there are dozens of universities and scientific research institutions engaged in the development and research of drying technology, which are distributed in the East, West, North and south of China, but most of the knowledge achievements have not been effectively transformed into practical productivity. If enterprises want to become the main body of technological innovation, they should directly unite with these universities and scientific research institutions in various forms, so that the resources can be reasonably allocated and utilized, and the innovation ability of enterprises can be effectively cultivated and developed. The future competition of drying equipment industry will focus on product quality, technical level, after-sales service and price. In the type of drying equipment, hot air heating atmospheric drying equipment and vacuum drying equipment will be the main drying equipment. Other users in special fields such as far-infrared drying equipment, flash dryer and microwave drying equipment will gradually expand the application number. In the field of food and drug drying, the demand for large-scale equipment in vacuum freeze-drying equipment will increase, and the demand for equipment with functional combination (such as granulation drying and drying filtration) will also increase. High automation drying equipment will be welcomed in some application fields. In addition, the appearance quality of drying equipment will be paid more and more attention. The corrosion resistance and reliable performance of drying equipment for corrosive materials will be paid special attention by users.

At present, China's drying equipment industry has begun to enter a more mature stage of development, which can better meet the actual needs of users in various fields. However, in terms of price, it is only 1 / 3 of the same products abroad, which makes China's drying equipment have an obvious price advantage over imported equipment in market competition; on the other hand, due to the large volume of drying equipment, most of them also involve on-site safety Therefore, it is more convenient for domestic users to choose domestic equipment than imported equipment. As far as the international market is concerned, China's accession to the WTO will be more conducive to expand the export of drying equipment. At present, China's main export products of drying equipment are vacuum drying equipment, vibration drying equipment, drying equipment for small and medium-sized grain, food and agricultural and forestry local products, with an annual export volume of more than 100 sets. The main export areas are Southeast Asia and other developing countries, and have opened the door to the European and American markets. At present, China's drying equipment export products accounted for less than 5% of the total domestic drying equipment, and it is estimated that the proportion of drying equipment export products in the total domestic drying equipment will reach more than 10% during the 10th Five Year Plan period. In the international competition, the main competitors of China's drying equipment manufacturers are Denmark, Switzerland, Britain, Germany, the United States and Japan. Compared with the competitors, the advantage of China's drying equipment is low price, and the disadvantages mainly lie in the degree of automation control, appearance quality, complete set and functional combination of products need to be further improved.

Therefore, the domestic drying equipment manufacturers should make full use of the opportunity of China's accession to WTO, strengthen the technical exchange with foreign countries, learn from the advantages of foreign advanced drying equipment, speed up the improvement of the degree of automation control, appearance quality, complete set and functional combination of drying equipment in China, narrow the gap with foreign products, improve the trust of domestic products among users, and make China dry Equipment not only in the domestic market, but also in the foreign market can occupy a place. At present, the varieties of drying equipment produced in our country are increasing day by day, the scope of application is expanding, the product level and quality are improving rapidly, and the market competitiveness is increasing. In particular, the Chinese government has issued various relevant policies to support the export of products, which has created excellent external conditions for domestic drying equipment manufacturers, which shows that the development prospect of drying equipment in China is good. Common knowledge of drying equipment: common dryer types include spray dryer, air dryer, flash dryer, fluidized bed dryer, fluidized bed spray granulation drier, etc. Flash dryer, spray dryer, spray drying is one of the fast developing equipment in drying equipment.
There are three conventional atomization methods: rotary atomization, pressure atomization and airflow atomization. Rotary atomizing spray drying is characterized by large production capacity per unit (spray volume up to 200t/h), easy control of feed quantity, large operation flexibility and wide application. Pressure atomizer spray drying is characterized by the manufacture of coarse particles and easy maintenance. Because the nozzle hole is very small and easy to be blocked, the feed liquid must be strictly filtered. The nozzle hole is easy to wear and must be made of wear-resistant materials. There is also a new structure of the pressure nozzle, which is called the pressure air flow nozzle. It is characterized by a pressure nozzle in the center and an air flow nozzle in the surrounding environment. The atomization is divided into two stages: the pressure nozzle first forms a liquid film, which is atomized by the air flow for the second time to make the droplets finer. The advantages of this type of nozzle are as follows:

(1) By adjusting the pressure of compressed air, the droplet diameter can be adjusted, and the operation is simple;

(2) If the compressed air is stopped, the original pressure nozzle can also be used. Airflow atomizer is mainly used in laboratory and intermediate factory, and its power consumption is large. If the first two atomizers can not atomize the feed liquid, the air atomizer may atomize. High viscosity paste, paste and cake materials can be atomized by three fluid nozzle. The technology of air flow dryer is mature. If there is operation data, it can be designed directly. At present, there are many drying equipment manufacturers can provide this type of equipment. The fluidized-bed dryer is second only to the spray dryer. It is divided into a fluidized bed dryer with an agitator at the feeding position and a fluidized bed dryer with internal heat transfer. When the fluidized bed is used to dry the powder materials which are easy to agglomerate or agglomerate, it will be difficult to fluidize in the feeding section with large moisture. At this time, an agitator is set in the feeding section to eliminate the agglomeration problem and achieve normal fluidization. The latter is a combination of conduction heat transfer and convection heat transfer. When the amount of hot air used in normal fluidization state is far from enough to meet the heat required for drying, an internal heat exchanger is used to supply part or most of the heat, which can significantly save energy. There are many forms of internal heat exchanger. Fluidized bed is also often used in combination with second and third stage dryers. Vibrating fluidized bed is called vibrating fluidized bed when vibration is applied to common fluidized bed. Vibration fluidization can be divided into two types: one is driven by vibration motor; the other is ordinary motor which makes spring vibrate by exciting box. When the size of vibrated fluidized bed is large, the effect of the latter is better. Fluidized bed spray granulation drier is an organic combination of three technologies: fluidization technology, atomization technology and drying technology. It is to spray the atomized material liquid on the fluidized seed bed to make the seed grow and dry continuously, and discharge it out of the device when it grows to the specified size. The equipment has small volume, large production capacity and can produce large particles. The industrial application of this equipment has been increasing day by day.