TECHNOLOGIES

1.    COMMUNICATIONS

The communications sector is characterised a lot by miniaturisation. High Frequency Design Andalucia S.L. did realise many designs and productions in this sector. A few examples are listed below

1                    A 24 GHz full-duplex transceiver capable of speeds up to 25 MB/Sec.

2                    A ultra miniature colour TV transmitter used in military systems

3                    Many remote control transmitters and receivers

4                    Ultra miniature receivers for portable data systems

5                    Communication transceivers

6                    Magnetic antenna systems

7                    RF alarm systems

8                    Doppler direction finding systems for the Spacecraft Industry

All the above has been designed in SMD 0805 and 0603 technology. 

2.     HIGH FREQUENCY and     MICROWAVE ENERGY

This sector became the most important activity of High Frequency Design Andalucia.  The application of this form of electrical energy is manifold. Some examples are listed below.

1                    Plastic welding

2                    Generation of Plasma’s

3                    Heating

4                    Vacuum drying

5                    Wood forming

6                    Wood gluing

7                    Cooking

8                    RF enhanced Air-drying

The advantage of nearly all applications is the possibility of a very uniform heating. This results in applications far superior than conventional technologies. If plastics are welded using conventional heating, the heat has to be transferred from the press to the inner-surface of the plastic. This is only possible for very thin layers. Nearly all plastics used for e.g. blood bags, urine bags, book-covers etc are welded with RF (Radio-Frequency) energy.

For many industrial-processing technologies the uniform heating is highly important. Wood can be heated very rapid without burning the outer surface. Temperature dependant glues in combination with RF energy are used worldwide to make formed parts like chair-seats. The very rapid gluing can be applied to minimise the amount of tooling required to glue wooden structures like doors.

Also in the Food and Chemical industry the uniform heating can be a big advantage in processing. If the added value of the materials heated and the time factor beats the increase costs of the use of electrical energy in stead of natural gas or oil, also heaters to pasteurise and sterilise materials are used. An example is the pasteurisation of sauces in the food industry. If these materials are pasteurised with an UHT process using conventional energy, stainless steel heatexchangers have to be used. The heat is transferred via the stainless steel to the sauce. Because the sauce does not have the natural convection of liquids, the material tends to hang to the inner-surface of the pipes where the material is over-heated. The heat exchangers have to be cleaned very often. In addition to that, the hot sauce is often acid or salty and corrodes the stainless steel. Highly expensive repairs have to be done to replace all the steel pipes in the exchangers regularly.

If RF magnetic heating is used, the applicator can be made out of glass or Teflon. This avoids the problems described above and can result in great cost savings.

Many materials should not be heated but need drying. The drying process is difficult for these materials. Vacuum dryers/mixers are used in order to get evaporation at low temperatures. The main problem is that the evaporation energy is applied via the surface of the vacuum dryer. The material though does not conduct the heat sufficiently well for this process and very complex and expensive mixers are required.

If RF or Microwave energy is used, the evaporation energy is generated in the material itself and very rapid and cool drying processes are possible. This technology is nearly ideal for many herbs, food products, algae etc.

High Frequency Design Andalucia is specialised in the design of the above applications and technologies. Also the equipment used is designed and produced in-house and in close co-operation with the Spanish industry.

Many processes make use of plasmas. Examples are the production of electronic integrated circuits (chips), sterilisation of materials, synthesis of diamond and many others. Plasmas are nearly always generated using RF or Microwave energy.  

Examples of equipment designed and produced by High Frequency Design Andalucia are listed below

1                    RF transistorised generators with output levels of 25 Watts, 200 Watts, 500 Watts, 1000 Watts and 2000 Watts

2                    Automatic tuners for processing and plastic welding.

3                    Antenna systems for fluorescent tube testing

4                    High power automatic tuners for vacuum drying installations

5                    Applicators for chemical and food processing

6                    Automatic tuning RF magnetic applicators.

7                    Systems for plasma generation

3.     RF RELATED SYSTEMS

Various systems use very fast high-power electronics. Examples well known are RADAR in the aircraft industry and Ultra-sonic systems for welding, depth-sounding, layer-testing and other applications. The design of such electronics requires a vast high frequency experience.

A very new and extremely promising technology is the pasteurisation of food by the application of a fast and extremely powerful electrical pulse, the Pulsed Electric Field sterilisation (PEF).

4.      PEF ANDA PLASMA STERILIZATION

For the sterilization of foods and waste sector, two technologies are under development.
For the sterilization of (mainly PET) bottles, a low-cost, pulsed Plasma generator is being developed. This generator will be capable of sterilizing 3-5 bottles per second with a pulsed plasma RF power of more than 50 kWatts.

For sterilization of food products and waste water, a new technology has been identified - Pulsed Electric Field sterilization. This is based upon the application of fast electric pulses to the material with levels exceeding 1 Volt/micrometer. This method uses very little power so the temperature rises very little. As a result, the quality of the product is not affected. Also, due to the small amount of energy required, the environmental load is small and large amounts of liquid like milk or waste water may be sterilized.
HFDA constructed one of the first experimental generators for this technology capable of applying more than 60 kWatt of pulsed power by 50 kVolts with variable pulse length and repetition time and a built-in applicator test bridge. This design will be adapted to production in order to enable tests of this very promising sterilization technology. We are capable of producing PEF generators up to 1 MWatt of power level.