Installation for freezing a liquid or semi-liquid product

Claim 1

An installation for freezing a liquid or semi-liquid product comprising a vessel in the form of a vertical tower through which a rising current of cold gas may pass to superficially freeze liquid droplets, an atomizing device in the upper portion of the vessel for atomizing the product into droplets, a fluidization plate disposed in the lower portion of the vessel for collecting superficially frozen atomized droplets in a fluidized bed, blower means for blowing at least a part of a cold gas upwardly through the fluidization plate to complete the freezing of the droplets as disposed within the fluidized bed, nozZle means disposed adjacent the lower portion of the vessel above the fluidization plate for injecting into the vessel a cold gas the temperature of which is lower than that of the cold gas which is blown upwardly through the fluidization plate to assist in completely freezing the droplets contained in the fluidized bed, discharge means associated with said fluidized bed for continuously discharging the completely frozen atomized droplets from the fluidization plate, and said fluidization plate including means disposed between said fluidized bed and said discharge means for providing a temperature homogenization zone for permitting all of the frozen droplets to attain substantially the same temperature prior to being supplied to said discharge means.