I’m Hélène Turtaut, Materials and Process engineer at Tournaire, leading company in the treatment of natural materials. I’m in charge of technical support to customers.

The evaporation is a process which consists in concentrating a solution. In plant extraction, the natural material is brought into contact with a solvent which will capture the extract. The solution is then filtered. The evaporation phase removes the solvent in order to obtain a concentrated extract. The solvent evaporated, condensed is then reused for a new evaporation.

There are many evaporation technologies. Tournaire mainly uses two of them: the falling film evaporator and the vacuum concentrator. The first has the advantage of having high evaporation rates, we mainly use it to pre-condense solutions. The second achieves high concentrations and very low dead volumes, which is essential for the perfume trades. In other cases, especially on thermosensitive molecules we can use scraped surface evaporators that allow the product to be exposed only for short periods and at low temperatures.

A trial carried out within Tournaire’s WiNatLab platform validates the feasibility of a project or confirms its interest, optimize a process, by playing for example on the different possible concentration rates or by adjusting parameters. It can also facilitate innovation by allowing the testing of new materials or access the latest technologies available within the platform.

This testing platform is aimed at companies of all sizes, whether they are established manufacturers or new entrants. The WiNatLab platform provides solutions to the perfume and flavoring, chemical, cosmetic and health pharmacy sectors.

With the WiNatLab platform, you can benefit from all the Tournaire experience acquired over the years, especially on the evaporation process. For example, Tournaire offers high-performance systems to manage foaming problems.