DRYING OPERATION

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INTRODUCTION

• Drying refers to the final removal of water, or another solute, and the
operation often follows evaporation, filtration, or crystallisation.

• Drying, in general, usually means removal of relatively small amounts

of water from the material whereas Evaporation refers to removal of
relatively large amounts of water from the material.

• In evaporation the water is removed as vapour at its boiling point

whereas in drying the water is usually removed as a vapour by air.

• Drying or dehydration of biological materials, especially foods is used

as a preservation technique,

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Reasons Why Drying Operation is an essential part
of the manufacturing process.
In the majority of processing industries, drying is carried out for one or
more of the following reasons:

• To reduce the cost of transport.

• To make a material more suitable for handling as, for example, with
soap powders, dyestuffs and fertilisers.
• To provide definite properties, such as, for example, maintaining the
free-flowing nature of salt.
• To remove moisture which may otherwise lead to corrosion. One
example is the drying of gaseous fuels or benzene prior to
chlorination.
• For food preservation

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General Principles
• Fluids may be removed from solids mechanically by presses or
centrifuges or thermally by vaporization. It is generally cheaper to
remove liquid mechanically than thermally and therefore it is
advisable to reduce the liquid content as much as practicable before
feeding the material to a heated dryer

• The moisture content of a material is usually expressed in terms of its

water content as a percentage of the mass of the dry material, though
moisture content is sometimes expressed on a wet basis.

• The liquid content of a dried material varies from product to product,

sometimes the product contains no liquid and is called bone-dry,
however commonly the dried product contains some liquid.

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General Principles

• Dried table salt for example contains about 0,5% water hence drying
is a relative term and only means that there is a reduction in liquid
content from an initial value to some acceptable final value.

• The material to be dried may be in many different forms such as

flakes, granules, crystals, powders, slabs or continuous sheets with
widely differing properties

• The liquid to be vaporized may be on the surface of the solid as in

drying salt crystals, entirely inside the solid as in solvent removal
from a sheet of polymer, or partly outside and partly inside.

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Types of Drying

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Types of Dryers
• Fluidized bed dryers

• Rotary dryers

• Rolling bed dryers

• Conduction dryers

• Convection dryers
•
• Pharmaceutical dryers

• Suspension/paste dryers

• Dispersion dryers.

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Types of Drying: Direct

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Types of dryers: Direct

Entrainment

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Types of dryers: Indirect

Vacuum-shelf indirect dryer

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Drum dryer
Types of dryers: Direct
Spray dryer

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Types of dryers: Indirect

Freeze dryer
Low temperatures,
drying under vacuum

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Types of dryers: Direct

Cabinet dryer
Popular in food industry

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Types of dryers: Direct

Fluidized-bed dryer
*Popular in food industry
*For granular food

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Types of dryers

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IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS

Moisture can be bound in a substance includes:

• Retention in small capillaries
• By solution in cells or fibre walls
• By homogenous solution throughout the solid
• By chemical or physical adsorption on solid surface
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EQUILIBRIUM MOISTURE CONTENT

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Rate of Drying
Why is it necessary to
Controlled by rate at
have an account of the which heat is applied to
drying rate? product

Fig 24.4

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Rate of Drying

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Rate of Drying
constant rate period
1𝑠𝑡 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒

2𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒

Xcritical Xcritical

Constant Drying period depends on: Fig C

-Heat and mass transfer coefficients
-exposed area
-between gas/ air stream and wet surface
of the solid
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• In drying, it is necessary to remove free moisture from the surface and
also moisture from the interior of the material.

• If the change in moisture content for a material is determined as a

function of time, a smooth curve is obtained from which the rate of
drying at any given moisture content may be evaluated.

• The form of the drying rate curve varies with the structure and type of
material, and two typical curves are shown

• In curve 1, there are two well-defined zones: AB, where the rate of
drying is constant and BC, where there is a steady fall in the rate of
drying as the moisture content is reduced.

• The moisture content at the end of the constant rate period is

represented by point B, and this is known as the critical moisture
content.
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• Curve 2 shows three stages, DE, EF and FC. The stage DE
represents a constant rate period, and EF and FC are falling rate
periods.

• In this case, the Section EF is a straight line, however, and only the
portion FC is curved.

• Section EF is known as the first falling rate period and the final stage,
shown as FC, as the second falling rate period.

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Experimental Determination of Rate of Drying

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Experimental Determination of Rate of Drying
• To experimentally determine the rate of drying for a given material, a
sample is usually placed on a tray.

• If it is a solid material it should fill the tray so that only the top surface
is exposed to the drying air stream.

• By suspending the tray from a balance in a cabinet or duct through

which the air is flowing, the loss in weight of moisture during drying
can be determined at different time intervals without interrupting the
operation.

• Data obtained from a batch-drying experiment are usually obtained as

W, total weight of the wet solid (dry solid plus moisture) at different
times t hours in the drying period. The data can be converted to rate-
of drying data as in slide.

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Experimental Determination of Rate of Drying

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Experimental Determination of Rate of Drying

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 Time of Drying
• If a material is dried by passing hot air over a surface which is initially
wet, the rate of drying curve in its simplest form is represented by
BCE.

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 𝑇𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒,

Example 1

Solve: (remember to convert %: Divide by 100)

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Material and Heat Balances for Continuous Dryer

Enthalpy of the
gas H’G
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Material and Heat Balances for Continuous Dryer

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Where cs is the
humid heat of gas

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