PATENT CLAIM ANALYSIS

Application Number: 16379127
Application Type: Utility
Filing Date: 2019-04
Publication Date: 2019-08
Patent Classification: ["264", "012000"]

Abstract:
The disclosure relates to ultrahigh efficiency spray drying systems and processes, utilizing induction of localized turbulence in a drying fluid flow stream to produce spray dried product, having particular utility for low temperature spray drying operations. In a specific implementation, a method of processing a spray dryable liquid composition to form a spray dried product includes the steps of: generating a spray of the spray dryable liquid composition; contacting the spray of spray dryable liquid composition in a spray drying contact zone with a stream of primary drying fluid; injecting pressurized secondary drying fluid into the stream of primary drying fluid in the spray drying contact zone at multiple loci thereof to provide localized turbulence at said multiple loci; and recovering the spray dried product from the spray drying contact zone. Systems of the present disclosure are effective in achieving high-rate production of dry powder spray dried products, with substantially reduced capital equipment costs, energy requirements, and operating expenditures.

Claim (Index 1):
A spray drying system, comprising:\n (a) a spray drying vessel comprising:\n (i) an interior volume arranged to receive an atomized spray-dryable material and drying fluid for contacting of the atomized spray-dryable material with the drying fluid in the interior volume; \n (ii) at least one drying fluid inlet by which the drying fluid is introduced into the interior volume for said contacting; and \n (iii) a spray-dried material outlet communicating with the interior volume, arranged to discharge spray-dried material and effluent drying fluid from the vessel; \n (b) an atomizer adapted to receive a spray-dryable material and discharge the atomized spray-dryable material into the interior volume of the vessel for said contacting; (c) turbulators positioned to generate localized turbulence in the drying fluid throughout the interior volume of the vessel; and (d) a process control unit adapted to regulate flow rate of drying fluid into the interior volume and flow rate of the spray-dryable material to the atomizer so that interaction of the drying fluid with the turbulators produces localized turbulence in the drying fluid throughout the interior volume of the vessel.

Metadata:
- Claim Count in Document: 80.0
- Percentile: 100.0
- Lexical Diversity: 2.04762
- Patent Class: 264.0
- Transitional Phrase Type: open
- Component Type: 1
- Foreign Priority: False
- Related Applications: ['16055075', '15668832', '15865657', '16005302', '15965910']

Analysis Scores:
- 35 USC 101 Eligibility (BERT): 0.8575552502629187
- 35 USC 102 Novelty (BERT): 0.6214555251555728
- Combined Prediction Score: 0.8339452777521842
- Mean Citation Score: 477.651418
- Max Citation Score: 560.5288
- Similarity Product: 553.035444643593

Labels:
- Claim Label 101: 1
- Claim Label 102: 1
- Claim Label 103: 1
- Claim Label 112: 1
- Combined Label: 1
- Label 101 Adjusted: 1

Dataset: test