UNIVERSITI SAINS MALAYSIA

SCHOOL OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

EKC 394: CHEMICAL ENGINEERING LABORATORY II

EXPERIMENT 21 : TRAY DRYER

GROUP NUMBER :7
GROUP MEMBER : JANICE NG JIA YEE 133621
KISHENTAR A/L RAJA KUMAR 133627
MUHAMMAD AKMAL BIN MOHAMED ARIFFIN 133647
NOR ZAFIRAH BIN ZULKIFLI 133659

INSTRUCTOR : ASSOC. PROF. DR. DEREK CHAN

TECHNICIAN : EN. MOHD RASYDAN

DATE OF EXPERIMENT : 25/4/2019
DATE OF SUBMISSION : 2/5/2019
1. OBJECTIVE

The objective of this experiment is to study the rates of drying of wet solid (sand) in a tray dryer under
constant temperature and humidity conditions of the drying air. Typical constant rate-falling pattern of
drying is to be identified with the estimation of the constant rate, critical moisture content and
equilibrium moisture content. Next is to study the behaviour of the drying curve with materials beds of
different particle size. Lastly is to study the effect of air velocity and air temperature on drying.

2. RESULTS

0.06

0.05 Coarse Sand

Moisture Content (g H20/g sand)

Fine Sand

0.04 V 2.5 m/s

V 2.0 m/s

0.03 T 70
T 80

0.02

0.01

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
Time (min)

Figure 1. Moisture content against time for (i) coarse sand and fine sand at temperature of 60 °C and
velocity of 1.5 m/s (ii) fine sand at constant temperature of 60 °C with various velocity (iii) fine sand at
constant velocity of 2.5 m/s with various temperature.

Table 1. Constant drying rate, critical moisture content and equilibrium moisture content for
experiment A, B and C. Values were extracted from data of drying curve.

Critical
Experi Type Temperat Velocit Constant Equilibrium
Moisture
ment of sand ure (°C) y (m/s) rate, Rc (m/s) Moisture Content
Content
Coarse
60 1.5 0.002 0.02 0
sand
A
Fine
60 1.5 0.00207 0.01716 0
sand
Fine
60 2 0.002958 0.01538 0
sand
B
Fine
60 2.5 0.00385 0.02012 0
sand
Fine
70 2.5 0.00296 0.01775 0
sand
C
Fine
80 2.5 0.00325 0.01775 0
sand

1
 0.0035
Coarse Sand

Drying Rate ( g H20/m2min

0.003 Fine Sand
0.0025
0.002
0.0015
0.001
0.0005
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
Moisture Content (g H20/ g sand)

Figure 2. Drying rate against moisture content for coarse sand and fine sand at temperature of 60 °C
and velocity of 1.5 m/s

0.006
Drying Rate ( g H20/m2min)

0.005
2.0 m/s
0.004
2.5 m/s
0.003

0.002

0.001

0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Moisture Content (g H20/g sand)

Figure 3. Drying rate against moisture content of fine sand at constant temperature of 60 °C.

0.007
0.006
Drying Rate ( g H20/m2min)

T 70
0.005
T 80
0.004
0.003
0.002
0.001
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05
Moisture Content (g H20/g sand)

Figure 4. Drying rate against moisture content of fine sand at constant velocity of 2.5 m/s

2
 -2.35
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45
-2.4
-2.45
y = 1.216x - 2.8972
-2.5
log Rc

-2.55
-2.6
-2.65
-2.7
log V

Figure 5. Graph of log (Rc) against log (velocity of air)

3. DISCUSSION
Drying is the process of vaporization and removal of water or other liquids from a solution, suspension,
or solid-liquid mixture to form dry solid. Tray drying is a batch process that involve convective heat
and mass transfer [1]. Hot air is continuously circulated in a tray dryer and moisture of the sand is
removed by forced convection heating. The water is removed as a vapor by air. As the water evaporates
from the surface, water will diffuse from the interior of the solids by capillary action. According to
Faust et.al [2], sand is a type of crystalline solid that hold moisture in open pores between particles.
During drying, the solid will not be affected by the drying rate and drying conditions in term of
appearance and properties. In this experiment, moisture content and drying curve of sand for a duration
of times were studied. Heater in the tray dryer supplied heat into the sand samples and air velocity is
used to flow through sand samples to evaporate the moisture content in sand. Weight of the wet sand
was measured every 2 minutes to calculate the moisture content of the sample. Generally, moisture
content of all trials decreased with time as water moisture evaporated or vaporized when hot air flow
through the sand sample.

3.1. Effect of particle size on drying

From figure 1, it can be observed that coarse sand (the larger particle) had higher moisture content
throughout the experiment as compared to fine sand (the smaller particle). From the graph, moisture
content decreased with the increasing of time until it reached zero or approximately zero. From figure
2, rate of drying for fine sand with smaller particle size was higher than the coarse sand. In drying
process, size of particle is one of the important parameter that will effect the drying rate. When particle
size decreased, the surface area per unit volume or specific surface area increased. Larger surface area
will be exposed to the surrounding. When size of particle decreased, the moisture transport distance due
to capillary action inside the particle decreased [3]. Moisture able to travel in shorter time to the surface
and dried. Thus, fine sand has a higher drying rate as compared to coarse sand.

3.2. Effect of air velocity on drying

Effect of air velocity on drying was studied by using 2.0 m/s and 2.5 m/s at a constant temperature 60
°C. Graph in figure 1 illustrates that moisture content at a particular time was lower when higher velocity
was used. Although there was some deviation in the results, but as overall we can observed from figure

3
3 that drying rate at 2.5 m/s was higher than 2.0 m/s. In tray drying, hot air flowed through the sand and
water evaporated from the surface. When velocity of drying air increased, more evaporated water
content will be brought away faster.

3.3. Effect of temperature on drying

Drying temperature of 70 °C and 80 °C operating at same velocity of 2.5 m/s were used to study the
effect on drying. It can be observed that moisture content at a specific time for the sand at 80 °C was
lower than 70 °C throughout the experiment. From figure 4, generally we observed that the higher air
temperature, the higher the drying rate. Increasing drying temperature resulted in increasing of drying
rate which in follows decreasing the drying time. When the temperature of air increased, the temperature
difference between the drying air and the product increased as well. This aided in water migrations and
increased the drying rate. As discussed before, tray drying involved convective heat transfer. According
Newton’s Law of Cooling, temperature difference between surrounding air and the sand will directly
affect the heat transfer.

𝑁𝑒𝑤𝑡𝑜𝑛′ 𝑠 𝐿𝑎𝑤 𝑜𝑓 𝐶𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑄 = ℎ𝐴(𝑇 − 𝑇𝑤) [4]

When temperature of drying air increased, more heat was supplied to the surface of the sand. Moisture
on the surface of the sand gain more energy to reach latent heat of vaporisation and escaped from the
surface [5]. By increasing drying temperature, humidity of air decreased. This will contribute in higher
drying rate as well. Therefore, higher temperature of drying air led to higher drying rate.

3.4. Constant drying rate, critical moisture content and equilibrium moisture content.

Theoretically, from a plot of rate of drying rate, we should be able to obtain a constant period rate for a
certain time interval. There should be an approximately constant rate of drying Rc until critical moisture
content is reached. Beyond this point, a remarkable drop in the drying rate will be seen until it reached
at the point that the rate of drying is nearly zero and having equilibrium moisture content. However, in
our experiment we cannot obtain a constant drying rate. The value shown in table was approximately
taken from our result. This may due to several reason. First of all, the water moisture was sprinkled to
the sand sample randomly until a thin layer of excess water is seen over the surface. The water that we
sprinkle may not evenly distributed on the surface. For every 2 minutes, the tray was taken out to
measure its’ weight. While travel for a distance to the weighing balance, we may accidently shake the
tray and caused the sand to move around. This will lead to inconsistent of surface area and thickness
throughout the experiment. Inner layer of sand that not yet dried may suddenly exposed to the surface
and lead to deviation in moisture content and drying rate. Moreover, the air velocity measured by
anemometer showed that the velocity is not consistent throughout the experiment. It was given that the
constant rate of drying is usually a function of velocity,

𝑅𝑐 = 𝐾. 𝑉 𝑦

Where K and y are constants and value of y is approximately 0.8. Graph of log (Rc) against log (velocity
of air) was plotted and a linear graph was shown in figure 5. From the graph, it was found that the y
value was 1.216 which was greater than the approximation value of 0.8. From table, equilibrium moister
content was 0 for all trials. This showed that sand did not bind moisture within its structure.

4
4. CONCLUSION

From the experiment, we can conclude that drying rate depends on particle size, velocity of air and
temperature of air. Tray drying is a process that reduce the water content to a lower level through
evaporation. For all trials, it showed that moisture content of the sand sample was the highest at initial
and reduced along with time throughout the experiment until it reached zero or approximately zero.
From our results, we conclude that smaller particle size, higher air velocity and higher air temperature
will have better drying. Under these conditions, the moisture content at specific time interval was lower.
Drying rate was higher and time required for drying was lower as well. Constant drying rate obtained
from the drying curve and critical moisture content was identified. Equilibrium moisture content for all
trials was approximately zero as sand does not bind moisture within its structure.

5. REFERENCE

[1] Seader, J., Henley, E. and Roper, D. (2017). Separation process principles. 4th ed. New York,
United States: John Wiley & Sons Inc.

[2] Faust, A.S., L.A. Wenzel, C.W. Clump, L. Maus, and L.B. Anderson, Principles of Unit Operations,
John Wiley & Sons, New York (1960).

[3] Pusat, S., Akkoyunlu, M. and Erdem, H. (2016). Evaporative Drying of Low-Rank Coal.

[4] JoVE Science Education Database. Chemical Engineering. Using a Tray Dryer to Investigate
Convective and Conductive Heat Transfer. JoVE, Cambridge, MA, (2019).

[5] Putra, R. and Ajiwiguna, T. (2017). Influence of Air Temperature and Velocity for Drying
Process. Procedia Engineering, 170, pp.516-519.

5
APPENDIX
All data in the results section were calculated by the aids on Microsoft Excel. Owing to the round off
error that occur due to differences of significant figures used in Microsoft Excel and normal calculation,
some of the value obtained might slightly different from manual calculation.

Sample of Calculation (Experiment A: Effect of Particle Size-Coarse Sand)

Weight of moisture content, W4

W4 = W2-W3-W1
= 409.9-169.4-232
= 8.5 g

Moisture Content, X
𝑊4
𝑋=
𝑊3
8.5 𝑔 𝐻20
= 169.4 𝑔 𝑠𝑎𝑛𝑑

= 0.05

Drying Rate, (-dX/dt)

𝑑𝑋 0.05 − 0.004486
− =−
𝑑𝑡 2−0
= 2.57 𝑥 10−3 𝑔 𝐻20/𝑚2 𝑚𝑖𝑛

Table 2. Nomenclature for symbols and parameters used in experiment.

Symbol Definition Unit

-dX/dt Drying rate [g H20/(m2min)]
W1 Weight of empty tray [g]
W2 Weight of tray with wet sand [g]
W3 Weight of dry sand [g]
W4 Weight of moisture [g]
W4* Weight of trays [g]
X Moisture content [g H20/g sand]

6
Experiment A: Effect of Particle Size on Drying
Weight of Tray (W1) : 232 g Temperature : 60 °C
Weight of Dry Sand (W3) : (i) Coarse sand 169.4 g Velocity : 1.5 m/s
(ii) Fine Sand 169 g

Table 1. Moisture content and drying rate of coarse sand and fine sand at constant temperature of 60 °C and air velocity of 1.5 m/s

Weight of Tray with Wet Sand (g) W4 Moisture content, Xi Drying rate
Time (min) Coarse Sand Fine sand Coarse Sand Fine sand Coarse Sand Fine sand Coarse Sand Fine sand
0 409.9 408 8.5 7 0.05018 0.04142 0.00000 0.00000
2 409 407 7.6 6 0.04486 0.03550 0.00266 0.00296
4 408 406.2 6.6 5.2 0.03896 0.03077 0.00295 0.00237
6 407.4 405.2 6 4.2 0.03542 0.02485 0.00177 0.00296
8 406.7 404.6 5.3 3.6 0.03129 0.02130 0.00207 0.00178
10 406.1 403.9 4.7 2.9 0.02774 0.01716 0.00177 0.00207
12 405.3 403.2 3.9 2.2 0.02302 0.01302 0.00236 0.00207
14 404.9 402.8 3.5 1.8 0.02066 0.01065 0.00118 0.00118
16 404.5 402.5 3.1 1.5 0.01830 0.00888 0.00118 0.00089
18 404 402.2 2.6 1.2 0.01535 0.00710 0.00148 0.00089
20 403.6 401.9 2.2 0.9 0.01299 0.00533 0.00118 0.00089
22 403.3 401.6 1.9 0.6 0.01122 0.00355 0.00089 0.00089
24 403 401.3 1.6 0.3 0.00945 0.00178 0.00089 0.00089
26 402.8 401 1.4 0 0.00826 0.00000 0.00059 0.00089
28 402.5 1.1 0.00649 0.00089
30 402.2 0.8 0.00472 0.00089
32 402 0.6 0.00354 0.00059
34 401.8 0.4 0.00236 0.00059
36 401.6 0.2 0.00118 0.00059
38 401.5 0.1 0.00059 0.00030
40 401.4 0 0.00000 0.00030

7
Experiment B: Effect of Velocity on Drying
Weight of Tray (W1) : 232 g
Weight of Dry Sand (W3) : 169 g
Temperature : 60 °C

Table 2. Moisture content and drying rate of fine sand at constant temperature of 60 °C.

Weight of Tray with Wet Sand W4 Moisture content, Xi Drying rate

Time (min)
2.0 m/s 2.5 m/s 2.0 m/s 2.5 m/s 2.0 m/s 2.5 m/s 2.0 m/s 2.5 m/s
0 408 408 7 7 0.04142 0.04142 0.00000 0.00000
2 406.3 406.7 5.3 5.7 0.03136 0.03373 0.00503 0.00385
4 405.3 405.7 4.3 4.7 0.02544 0.02781 0.00296 0.00296
6 404.3 404.4 3.3 3.4 0.01953 0.02012 0.00296 0.00385
8 403.6 402.7 2.6 1.7 0.01538 0.01006 0.00237 0.00503
10 403 402.2 2 1.2 0.01183 0.00710 0.00178 0.00148
12 402.4 401.6 1.4 0.6 0.00828 0.00355 0.00178 0.00178
14 402 401.3 1 0.3 0.00592 0.00178 0.00118 0.00089
16 401.6 401 0.6 0 0.00355 0.00000 0.00118 0.00089
18 401.5 0.5 0 0.00296 0.00030
20 401.3 0.3 0.00178 0.00059
22 401 0 0.00000 0.00089

8
Experiment C: Effect of Temperature on Drying
Weight of Tray (W1) : 232 g
Weight of Dry Sand (W3) : 169 g
Velocity : 2.5 m/s

Table 3. Moisture content and drying rate of fine sand at constant velocity of 2.5 m/s

Weight of Tray with Wet Sand W4 Moisture content, Xi Drying rate

Time (min)
70 °C 80 °C 70 °C 80 °C 70 °C 80 °C 70 °C 80 °C
0 408 408.1 7 7.1 0.04142 0.04201 0.00000 0.00000
2 406 406.3 5 5.3 0.02959 0.03136 0.00592 0.00533
4 405 405.2 4 4.2 0.02367 0.02485 0.00296 0.00325
6 404 404.2 3 3.2 0.01775 0.01893 0.00296 0.00296
8 403.3 402.8 2.3 1.8 0.01361 0.01065 0.00207 0.00414
10 402.7 402.2 1.7 1.2 0.01006 0.00710 0.00178 0.00178
12 402.2 401.7 1.2 0.7 0.00710 0.00414 0.00148 0.00148
14 401.9 401.2 0.9 0.2 0.00533 0.00118 0.00089 0.00148
16 401.6 401 0.6 0 0.00355 0.00000 0.00089 0.00059
18 401.3 0.3 0.00178 0.00089
20 401 0 0.00000 0.00089