VAPOR SPRAYER AND PROCESS FOR PROVIDING A VOLATILE FLUID AS A VAPOR SPRAY

摘要

AbstractThe present invention provides a novel appara-tus and process for generating a vapor spray from a vol-atile fluid. In the invention, the volatile fluid isheated to a temperature just below its boiling pointprior to being discharged from heat exchanger (18, 46).In one embodiment of the apparatus, heat exchanger (46)contains a diffusion plate (48) to ensure that the vola-tile fluid is at the selected temperature when dischargedfrom the heat exchanger. In this embodiment, the appara-tus further includes a pressure-responsive valve (40) anda bypass line (42) so that a selected pressure is main-tained downstream from pump (34).The novel process of the present invention in-cludes the step of heating the volatile fluid withinheat exchanger (18, 46) to a selected temperature justbelow its boiling point prior to discharge from the heatexchanger. In one embodiment, the process further in-cludes the step of impinging the volatile fluid streamas it enters heat exchanger (46) onto diffusion plate(48) so that it is ensured that the volatile fluid is atthe selected temperature upon discharge. In this embodi-ment, passing of the fluid drawn from reservoir (32) isaccompanied by modulating the flow of the drawn fluidthrough bypass line (42) connecting pump (34) and reser-voir (32), whereby a selected pressure is maintaineddownstream from pump (34).