Drying

Drying as a Process (Unit Operation)

Object: Removal of liquid (usually water) from solid material.

Need of Drying
Drying of various feedstocks is needed for one or several of the following reasons:
need for easy-to-handle free-flowing solids, preservation and storage, reduction in cost of
transportation, achieving desired quality of product, etc. In many processes, improper
drying may lead to irreversible damage to product quality and hence a non-salable
product.
Industrial Applications

Batch drying: Wet material is inserted in drying equipment and removed after an
appropriate amount of time.
Continuous drying: Wet material is continuously introduced and dry material
withdrawn after a contacting period.

Modes of drying

Drying occurs by effecting vaporization of the liquid by supplying heat to the wet
feedstock. As noted earlier, heat may be supplied by convection (direct dryers), by
conduction (contact or indirect dryers), radiation or volumetrically by placing the wet
material in a microwave or radio frequency electromagnetic field. Over 85 percent of
industrial dryers are of the convective type with hot air or direct combustion gases as the
drying medium. Over 99 percent of the applications involve removal of water. All modes
except the dielectric (microwave and radio frequency) supply heat at the boundaries of
the drying object so that the heat must diffuse into the solid primarily by conduction. The
liquid must travel to the boundary of the material before it is transported away by the
carrier gas (or by application of vacuum for non-convective dryers).
Methods:
1. Addition of heat: Heat is added to ambient air which then contacts the wet material (the moist
air is usually removed).
2. Vacuum drying: Evaporation is enhanced by lowering the pressure over the wet
material and heat may be added by direct contact with a metal tray holding the
wet material or by radiation (IR).
3. Freeze drying: Low pressures and temperatures are employed to cause the water to sublime
from a solid state (ice).

Thermodynamic Properties of Air-Water Mixtures and Moist Solids

2.1.1 Psychrometry

As noted earlier, a majority of dryers are of direct (or convective) type. In other
words, hot air is used both to supply the heat for evaporation and to carry away the
evaporated moisture from the product. Notable exceptions are freeze and vacuum dryers,
which are used almost exclusively for drying heat-sensitive products because they tend to
be significantly more expensive than dryers operate near to atmospheric pressure.
Another exception is the emerging technology of superheated steam drying (Mujumdar,
1995). In certain cases, such as the drum drying of pasty foods, some or all of the heat is
supplied indirectly by conduction.
Drying with heated air implies humidification and cooling of the air in a wellinsulated (adiabatic) dryer. Thus, hygrothermal properties of humid air are required for
the design calculations of such dryers.

of pure liquid at the same temperature.

The dry-bulb temperature is the temperature of the air

water-vapor mixture as measured by a thermometer
exposed to the mixture.
The wet-bulb temperature is the temperature indicated
by a thermometer covered with a wick like material
saturated with liquid after the arrangement has been
allowed to reach evaporation equilibrium with the mixture,
as indicated in Fig.

Adiabatic saturation temperature of air

The adiabatic saturation temperature of air, is the temperature air attains after flowing over water in a long
adiabatic channel until it is saturated

The dew point of the mixture is the temperature at which

vapor starts to condense when the mixture is cooled at
constant pressure.

Constant rate period, falling rate period,

critical moisture content

Temperature Pattern in dryers

Batch dryer

Continuous countercurrent adiabatic dryer

The moisture in a solid is retained in two forms . These comprise:

(a) Bound moisture, which exerts an equilibrium vapor pressure less than that of free
water at the same temperature. How this moisture is retained depends upon the nature of
the solid; it may be retained in fine capillaries, or adsorbed onto surfaces, or within a cell
or
fibre walls, or in physical/chemical combination with the solid.
(b) Unbound moisture which exerts an equilibrium vapor pressure equal to that of water
at the same temperature. This moisture is retained in the voids of the solid.

Free moisture content is plotted on X

axis

Typical drying curve : where total moisture content

plotted on x axis
Typical Drying rate curve

Summary: Calculation of drying time

1. Gas is blown across the surface of a bed or slab of solids or across one or both faces of a
continuous sheet or film. This process is called cross-circulation drying.

2. Gas is blown through a bed of coarse granular solids that are supported on a screen. This is
known as through-circulation drying.

CROSS-CIRCULATION DRYING
The drying rate of solids containing internal liquid, however, depends on the way the
liquid moves and on the distance it must travel to reach the surface. This is especially
important in cross-circulation drying of slabs or bed of solids. Drying by this method is
slow, is usually done batch wise, and has been displaced by other faster methods in most
large-scale drying operations; it remains important, however, in the production of
pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals, especially when drying conditions must be carefully
controlled.

We know that 359 ft3 of air weighs 29 lbs

Therefore 1 ft3 of air weighs= 29/359 lbs
Density of air= mass/vol of air at 120 oF
=

m
V2

V1 V2
=
T 1 T2

volume occupied by 1 ft 3 of air at 120 oF is V 2=

density of air at 120 oF is =

m
V2 =

G = Mass velocity of air =

V1
xT2
T1

29/359
1 x (460+120)
492

ft lb
lb
. 3= 2
hr ft ft hr

29/359
G= 3.5 x3600 x 1 x ( 460+120)
492

= 863

lb
2
ft hr

1 x (460+120)
492

lbs/ft3

Because

Mass= vol of 1 cylinder x dry

density

A= no of cylinders x area of 1
cylinder

Let heat transfer coefficient be given in the problem as =26.7 btu/ft2-hr-oF

h= 26.7 btu/ft2-hr-oF

To predict Rc the heat transfer coefficient must be known.

When air is flowing parallel to the drying surface
because the shape of the leading edge of drying surface causes more turbulence, the following
can be used for an air temperature of 45-150oC and a mass velocity G of 2450-29300 kg/h.m2
or a velocity of 0.61-7.6 m/s
h=0.0204G0.8 (SI)
h=0.0128G0.8 (English)
where in SI units G is v. kg/h.m2 and h is W/m2.K.
In English units G is v. lbm/h.ft2 and h isbtu/ft2.oF.
When air flows perpendicular to the surface for a G of 3900-19500 kg/h.m2 or a velocity of
0.9-4.6 m/s
h=1.17G0.37 (SI)
h=0.37G0.37 (English)

If you take hot moist air for drying , you need to know the humid voume vH

G=v

where v is velocity of air, and is the density of air used for drying

So if humidity is 0.01kg/kg
Then =

1+0.01
vH

Then find G, then find h by using equation h = 0.0204 G 0.8 if parallelflow.


Product size may range from microns to tens of centimeters (in thickness or
depth)
Product porosity may range from zero to 99.9 percent
Drying times range from 0.25 sec (drying of tissue paper) to five months (for
certain hardwood species)
Production capacities may range from 0.10 kg/h to 100 t/h
Product speeds range from zero (stationary) to 2000 m/s (tissue paper)
Drying temperatures range from below the triple point to above the critical
point of the liquid
Operating pressure may range from fraction of a millibar to 25 atmospheres
Heat may be transferred continuously or intermittently by convection,
conduction, radiation or electromagnetic fields
Clearly, no single design procedure that can apply to all or even several of the
dryer variants is possible.

One of two methods of heating is used:

(a) Direct heating, where the hot gases or air pass through the material in
the dryer.
(b) Indirect heating, where the material is in an inner shell, heated
externally by hot
gases. Alternatively, steam may be fed to a series of tubes inside the shell
of
the dryer.