How to dry a material with a low melting point?

[Aminmed]

Hi there,

I am synthesizing a material by a chemical route. At the last stage, the desired material precipitates in the aqueous solution, while it has a large volume because it's a hydrated material. I can remove the extra water by filtering and after that, I want to dry it to make it in a powdery form. But, the melting point of this material is near 60 C, and I cannot use higher temperatures (like 100 C) for drying. I have used lower temperatures (e.g. 50-55 C) to dry it in the oven, but after about 2 days, drying was not complete yet. I mean the drying procedure at these temperature ranges (about 50 C) takes too long, and cannot be cost-effective in the large scales.

Do you have any suggestion for drying this material in a simple way at shorter times?

Regards,

[Sensei]

Boiling point of compound is not constant and depends also on pressure.

So you can try lowering pressure to boil excess of water.

It is widely used method:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_drying

..with ready to use equipment:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Vacuum+dryer

(anyone serious about chemistry should have a vacuum pump anyway)

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Sensei

[Aminmed]

Good suggestion

 

Thanks a lot

[studiot]

29 minutes ago, Sensei said:

Boiling point of compound is not constant and depends also on pressure.

So you can try lowering pressure to boil excess of water.

It is widely used method:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_drying

..with ready to use equipment:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Vacuum+dryer

(anyone serious about chemistry should have a vacuum pump anyway)

 

 

20 minutes ago, Aminmed said:

Good suggestion

 

Thanks a lot

Agreed  +1

[John Cuthber]

47 minutes ago, Aminmed said:

Hi there,

I am synthesizing a material by a chemical route. At the last stage, the desired material precipitates in the aqueous solution, while it has a large volume because it's a hydrated material. I can remove the extra water by filtering and after that, I want to dry it to make it in a powdery form. But, the melting point of this material is near 60 C, and I cannot use higher temperatures (like 100 C) for drying. I have used lower temperatures (e.g. 50-55 C) to dry it in the oven, but after about 2 days, drying was not complete yet. I mean the drying procedure at these temperature ranges (about 50 C) takes too long, and cannot be cost-effective in the large scales.

Do you have any suggestion for drying this material in a simple way at shorter times?

Regards,

I can dry a cotton towel at 20C, by simply hanging it on a washing line outside for a few hours.

Putting stuff in a closed box tends to inhibit drying- even if that box is called an oven- because there is nowhere for the water to go.
Fitting a vacuum pump to the box does address that issue, but is expensive (also, a lot of vacuum pumps are not designed to handle large volumes of water vapour).
 

Exposing the material, in a thin layer, to the atmosphere will let it dry just like  the towel...