Harper’s patented Vertical Conveyor furnace, Vertical calciner is the company’s most recent thermal processing innovation for a broad range of product feedstocks especially for materials that need high temperature solid-solid and solid-gas reactions, such as carbides, nitrides, borides and refractory metal powders.
The reactions in Harper’s vertical conveyor furnace take place uniformly and quickly over the surface layer of material and off-gas exits the process upwards and away from the product. The specialized material movement of the system restricts the potential for overheating problems such as sublimation or melting, excessive grain growth or sintering.
Furthermore, the container-less design of the system ensures that thermal transfer between reactants and product considerably improves the unit’s power efficiency.
Key Features
The main features of vertical conveyor furnaces are:
- Reduces the opportunity for product sticking or gas-phase entrainment during processing
- Increases product uniformity and reaction time by minimizing or eliminating bulk bed effects
- Offers better heat and mass exchange between products and reactants for improved efficiency
- Restricts heating and cooling requirements to the process material only – containment remains at temperature and the process material moves through it