Advantage and disadvantage of freeze drying or lyophilization?

Freeze dried product with stunning quality that benefit a lot:

Freeze drying not destroy product original structure:

Freeze drying, or lyophilization skips liquid phase, involves only solid phase and vapor phase. The sublimation starts (gradually drying) from top to bottom, that means product original structure will not destroy due to water boiling when goes out from raw material.

Freeze drying protect bacterial activity:

Because of the drying process finished under vacuum, in sub-zero temperature, bacteria will not be killed.

Freeze drying guarantee vitamins and microelement percentage:

Heat sensitive vitamins and microelement almost no lose after freeze drying.

Freeze drying keep product odor and flavor.

Easy rehydration:

After water sublimated, microchannel leave, dried products with spongy internal that can rapidly rehydrate by add water or solvents.

Convenient storage and transfer:

Dried material moisture contains <3%, that is light weight. Unlike raw product need critical storage condition, freeze dried product, you can store it in room temperature, and can keep up to 10 years.

The only disadvantage of freeze drying is the cost:

Freeze drying cycle may take several hours to several days, and the process consume more energy than other drying method that use higher temperature. More processing hours, low production capacity and high production cost.

For food industry, Organic, nutritional and amazing taste. For pharmaceutical and biological, the active ingredient can meet demand. Freeze drying is the trend, and market share is increasingly.