Conta] TRAY DRYING OF SOLIDS ARTIN AFACAN AND JACOB MASLIYAH University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 266 Tv exrznnwnnt described in this paper is de- Jigned to expose the students to two topics: the principles of drying and simultaneous heat and mass transfer. Drying of solids is considered to occur in two stages, a constant rate period followed by a falling rate period. In the constant rate period, the rate of drying corresponds to the removal of water from the surface of the solid. ‘The falling rate period corresponds to the re- moval of the water from the interior of the solid. ‘The rate in either case is dependent on a number of factors. Some of these are the air wet and dry bulb temperatures, flow rate of air, the solids characteristics and the tray material. [Asin Afacan is a chomical technologist in the department of chemical enginearing at the University of Alberia, He received his {se (1975) in chemical engineering from Istanbul Technical University He hos had industrial experiance with TEROCHEM and for the last four years he hos boon involved with the design of pilet scale exper ‘ments in unit eporstions, process contol, and reaction engineering He i currently involved in an oilsands research projet. Jacob H. Maslyah is 2 profesor of chemical engineering at the University of Alberta, He received his 8S (1964) in chemical engineer- ing from the University College, London, his MSe (1966) from the University of New Brunewick, and his PHO (1971) from the University of British Columbia, Ho has hed industial experience with CIL and is presently invalid with the hoavy oil sands industry. Mi research Interests are. in the areee of mathematieal modeling of process quipments, transport phenomena, and numerical analysis. He has over ity publications in acienife ournels. (8) 132 t FIGURE 1. Schematic of experimental equipment. THEORY Drying can be described in terms of gas mass- transfer and heat transfer coefficients. The rate of drying is given by e _y) =f No = ky. -¥) = a) where q is the total heat supplied by the gas stream to the solid and it is given by Q=h(T.-T,) +h, (TT) + Us (Ty-T) @) where h,, h,, U, are the heat transfer coefficients for convection, radiation, and conduction, re- spectively. They are given by Treybal (1) as h, = 1436" @) hy = eo(T,\=T,) /(T,-T.) (4) Us = [(1/h) (AJAg) + (Zn /un) (AJA) + (ZK) (A/ Aw) | (5) (© Copyright CME Divison, ASEE, 1984 CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATIONMaking use of Eqs. (1) and (2), the relation- ship between T, and Y, becomes a+) -1) PET) where (h,/k;) ratio is related to Lewis number, Le, and is given by Henry and Epstein [2] as d - (8 yc, ~ \Pr C. is the specific heat of saturated gas at T,. For an air-water system the Lewis number is approximately equal to unity. Eqs. (3) and (7) are used to evaluate h, and ky, respectively. Simul- taneous iterative solution of Eq. (6) with the saturation humidity curve provides the solid sur- face temperature 'T, and the corresponding value of the humidity, ¥,. Once Y. is known, Eq. (1) ean be used to calculate the theoretical drying rate, N, ‘The absolute air humidity Y is measured experi- mentally from the dry and wet bulb temperatures. yr = Le « EQUIPMENT A schematic diagram of the experimental set- up is shown in Fig. 1, It is a wind-tunnel type tray dryer designed to give a good control of air temperature and air flow rate. It consists of an air blower, a heater and an orifice plate in the air duct, and a tray sample mounted on a digital bal- ance, The air flow rate is controlled by a gate in a : 1 Dry-Bulb (6) Wet-Bulb ('C) 8 25 29} = om gos == 2 318 = 100 36 Air Flow Rate ~ 1.98 kg/m? s 008) 7a) Taig 2860 28803000 4820 5040 Time 6, 8 Moisture Content, X (kg of water/kg of dry solid) FIGURE 2. Variation of moisture content with time for different air temperatures. SUMMER 1984 The reasonably good agreement the calculated rate of drying and that ‘observed experimentally makes students feel confident applying engineering design correlations. the blower inlet line, and its flow rate is measured by a pre-calibrated orifice-meter. The temperature is controlled by a closed-loop on-off controller. Wet and dry bulh thermometers are placed at the inlet and outlet of the drying chamber. The wet-bulb temperature is measured by a mercury ther- mometer, with its bulb covered by a wick kept in a water reservoir. The water reservoir is at- tached to the bottom of the duet as shown in Fig. 1. This method of measuring the wet-bulb temperature was simple and inexpensive. How- ever, this method was later replaced by humidity sensors to obtain more accurate and direct measurements. ‘The cross-section of the air duct is 0.12 m x 0.12 m and that of the drying chamber section con- taining sample tray is 0.185 m x 0.28 m. The sample tray is made of aluminum sheel metal having a thickness of 0.001 m and dimensions of 0.125 m x 0.16 m X 0.007 m, EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE ‘Two sets of experiments are performed: one set is at a constant air temperature and different air flow rates, and the other is at a constant air flow rate and different air temperatures. The dr ing material used is Ottawa-sand (35-48 Mesh). The tray sample is loaded with about 250 2 of sand and placed over the balance in the drying chamber. The weight of the tray and the sand is recorded, When the desired conditions of tempera~ ture and air velocity are reached (about 10 min), the sample tray is removed and the sand is wetted to give a desired initial moisture content. A stop watch is started and the balance reading is taken, Subsequent balance readings are taken at about three minute intervals. Drying is assumed to be ‘complete when at least three consecutive readings, are unchanged. The wet/dry bulb temperatures at the inlet and outlet of the drying chamber and air flow rate are recorded at least three times during the course of a run to give average operat- ing conditions, ‘The same procedure is repeated for other runs at different operating conditions. The range of the variables studied are: air flow rate, 1-15 kg/m's; 138Ew | 2 | | z4 | a. | ° Ti Pow Rate 1.980 ¥G/ns = Dry-Bulb Wet-Bulb gE 4 ce ro) 4 ° ——— 5 26 ee ee | 2 = 2 ms 4 —— 100 36 | °9 cos 008 G07 —cwO ORs O15 Os Moisture Content X, (kg of water/kg of dry solid) FIGURE 3. Variation of drying rate with moisture content for different air temperatures. air temperature, 50-100°C; sand initial moisture, 15-20%. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION From the measurement of the weight of the sand sample, the moisture content (X) of the sample at different times is calculated. A typical plot of the variation of moisture content with time is shown in Fig. 2. Ai Temperature 10] Dry Bulb, 72°C et Bulb, 28°C Air Flow Rate, ko/m2s a 138 eS the = he + tor Drying Rate, N, kg/m2s yaaa Moisture Content, X (kg of water/kg of dry soli 0050-Go7s Tied O15 815 oars FIGURE 4. Variation of drying rate with moisture content for different air flow rates. 134 ‘The drying rate is caleulated from the relation ship ax 1 N-S9-¢ y where the rate of change of the moisture content, aX/d9, is obtained from the slope of the curve X vs of Fig. 2. The drying rate is then plotted against the moisture content. Figs. 8 and 4 show typical plots of the variation of the drying rate with moisture content at constant air flow rate and constant air temperature, respectively. Fig. 5 gives a comparison of the constant dry- ing rate, N,, caleulated using Eq. (1) with that experimentally measured. The agreement is with- in 20%, with the calculated values being con- sistently lower. Since the variation of the latent heat of vap- orization and that of the radiation heat transfer 4 ‘bop Soy 3 wo} 2 g 2 E R a0 8 Ait Fow Rate = 1.98 kom? 4079109301865 ‘Theoretical Nc, kg/m2s 199 0-4 FIGURE 5. Comparison between experimental and theoretical drying rates at different air tomperatures. is fairly small for the range of temperature cov- ered in this experiment, the overall drying rate N. becomes directly proportional to the overall driving force T, - T,). Fig. 6 shows such a de- pendence, The effect of air flow rate on drying rate during constant drying period is shown in Fig. 7. It shows that the constant drying rate, N., is pro- potional to G"*. The linear dependence of N. on G* is not surprising as the eonveetive heat trans- fer is the major mode of transfer and the convee- tive heat transfer coefficient, h., is proportional to G"* as given by Ea. (3) CHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATIONCONCLUSION ‘The drying experiment proposed here is useful in presenting the concept of simultaneous heat and mass transfer. The reasonably good agree- ment in the calculated rate of drying and that ob- Constant Air Flow Rate 1.38 kg/m2s ‘© Theoretical "Experimental Range of Air Temperature Dry-Bulb 58 - 100°C Wet-Bulb 25- 36°C | 10200500 Driving Force, (Tg ~ Ts) FIGURE 6. Effect of temperature dri rate at constant air flow rate, force on dry- served experimentally makes students feel con- fident in applying engineering design correla- tions. 0 REFERENCES 1, ‘Treybal, Robert E., Mass-Transfer Operations, Me- Graw Hill Ine., 1980, Chapters 7 and 12. 2, Henry, H. C., and N. Epstein: Can. J. Chem. Eng. 595, 602, 609 (1970). NOMENCLATURE A Drying surface area [m*] ‘Ay Nondrying surface area of drying solid [im] Ag Average solid surface area (m*] Cl Saturated specific heat of the gas iJ for mixture/kg (air) °C] C, Specific heat [J/kg"*C] Dan Diffusivity [m*/s} G"" Mass velocity of gas [k/m*s] h, Heat transfer coefficient for convection, Iw /m?-K] h, Heat transfer coefficient for radiation hw /m'+K} k jermal Conductivity of gas [w/m*K] SUMMER 1984 1» Experimental = Theoretical AlrTemperature DryBulb Wet-Bulb 720 | 28C Constant Drying Rate, No, kg/m2s 1 135 150 175 Air Mass Velocity, G kg/m? s FIGURE 7. Effect of air velocity on drying rate at constant air temperature. k, Thermal Conductivity of solid (sand) [w/m'K] ky ‘Thermal conductivity of tray [w/ ky Gas phase mass transfer coefficient [ke dry air/'m*-s Le Lewis number [Le = Se/Pr] N- Drying rate (kg/m*. N. Constant drying rs (kg/m) Cp n/k} Pr Prandtl number [Pr 4 Total flux of heat received at the drying surface [w/m"] dq. Heat flux due to convection [w/m* i: Heat flux due to eonduetion [w/m’ d, Heat flux due to radiation [w/m*] S Mass of dry solid (sand) [kg] Se Schmidt number (Se ~ u/p Dox] Te Absolute temperature of gas (dry-bulb) [K] T. Absolute temperature of radiating surface (K] T. Absolute temperature of solid surface [K] Us Overall heat transfer coeficient (wm) X' Moisture content of a solid [kg of water/ke of dry solid] Y Absolute humidity [ke water vapor/ke dry y, air ._Bilurated humidity at surface of solid temperature [kg water vapor /kg dry air] Zw Metal thickness [m| Z. Sand thickness [m] Greek Symbols © Emissivity of drying surface {dimensionless} ¢ Time's} d, Latent heat of vaporization at T, [J/kg] @ — Stefan-Boltzman Constant 5.729x10* [w/m:-K*) n Viscosity [ke/mss] p Density [kg/m*] 185