Drying may be defined as the vaporization and removal of water or other liquids from a solution, suspension, or

other solid-liquid mixture to form a dry solid. It is a complicated process that involves simultaneous heat and
mass transfer, accompanied by physicochemical transformations. Drying occurs as a result of the vaporization
of liquid by supplying heat to wet feedstock, granules, filter cakes and so on. Based on the mechanism of heat
transfer that is employed, drying is categorized into direct (convection), indirect or contact (conduction), radiant
(radiation) and dielectric or microwave (radio frequency) drying.

Heat transfer and mass transfer are critical aspects in drying processes. Heat is transferred to the product to
evaporate liquid, and mass is transferred as a vapor into the surrounding gas. The drying rate is determined by
the set of factors that affect heat and mass transfer. Solids drying is generally understood to follow two distinct
drying zones, known as the constant-rate period and the falling-rate period. The two zones are demarcated by a
break point called the critical moisture content.

Figure 2.1 shows the configuration of the evaporator. The evaporator is essentially a
counterflow heat exchanger. However, there are a few distinct differences. One difference is
that between the end of the evaporator and the outlet temperature probe is about 15 inches of
suction line and an accumulator. The additional suction line passes through the air which has
already been cooled (See Figure 2.1). In some cases the superheated refrigerant is hotter than
the exit air of the evaporator. In these cases the superheated refrigerant is recooled. This
recooling region of the superheated refrigerant uses up evaporator space and can cause lower
exit temperatures than predicted by a model that does not account for this section.
Unfortunately no thermocouples were installed in this refrigerator to measure what the
temperature of the refrigerant is before it passes through the accumulator region.

In the words of an excellent reference manual on cooling, "Evaporation is utilized to its fullest extent in cooling towers,
which are designed to expose the maximum transient water surface to the maximum flow of air - for the longest period
of time." This statement highlights a fundamental aspect of cooling towers that those new to the industry may not fully
recognize; the majority of heat transfer in a cooling tower (typically 65 to 85 percent depending upon atmospheric
conditions) is due to evaporation of a small amount of the circulating water. This aspect will be outlined in a subsequent
example.

A very important concept for understanding cooling tower heat transfer is that of "wet bulb" temperature.
Consider a warm summer day with 90°F shade temperature at 40 percent relative humidity. A standard
thermometer would naturally read 90o, which is the "dry bulb" temperature. Now, attach another thermometer
alongside the dry bulb thermometer but with a soaked piece of cloth around the bulb of the second thermometer,
and put both on a swivel such that the thermometers can be swirled very rapidly through the air. This simple
and common device is known as a sling psychrometer. After a while, the dry bulb thermometer will still read
90°F but the other thermometer will read 71.2°F. This latter reading is the wet bulb temperature, and is the
lowest temperature that can be achieved by evaporative cooling.

No matter how efficient, a cooling tower can never chill the recirculating water to the wet bulb temperature, and
at some point costs and space requirements limit cooling tower size. The separation in temperature between the
chilled water and wet-bulb value is known as the approach. The data below show the relative size of a cooling
tower for a range of approach temperatures.