Modern developments in the spray-drying industries

The objective of this literature review is to meticulously cover an extensive portion of the patented work in the field of industrial spray-drying. During the past two decades, significant progress has been made in the fabrication of powdery products through spray-drying. Important improvements in the design of existent spray-drying setups were reported along with enhancements in the energy efficiency of resultant technologies. Spray-drying is heavily employed in the food industry for encapsulation of dyes, fragrances, vitamins, minerals, and fats, to generate colors, flavors and other characteristics in foods. Paint pigments and detergents are also obtained via spray-drying. Additionally, some industrial catalysts are regularly achieved employing spray-drying due to a consistent size distribution of the resultant particles. Recent research has also indicated that spray-drying might be a valuable route for the crystallization of amorphous powders. This review paper discusses several novel spray-drying methods and procedures that have been proposed, predominantly during the past decade, by researchers from various companies and/or universities. © 2011 Bentham Science Publishers Ltd.