Drying of Solids and Dryer’s Classification

 Drying of solids refer to the final removal of water or

another solvent from a wet product
Drying is a reduction in moisture content from an initial
amount to an acceptable amount (EMC equilibrium moisture
content)
 Drying is an unit operation in which a liquid usually water
is removed from a wet solid in equipment termed as dryer
 Operation often follows Evaporation, Filtration or
Crystallization
 Objective of drying of solids is the removal of water or any
solvent from wet solids
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Drying is a Complex Process

Multicomponent Change of physical

Moisture transport structure

Change in
Coupled with mass quality
transfer
DRYING AS A
THERMAL Transient
PROCESS
Input
Continuous/ Shrinkage
intermittent

Chemical/
Phase change
biochemical
reactions

 Drying of solids is a complex process involving several rate

processes occurring co-currently
3 or sequentially
 To reduce cost of transport
 To make a material more suitable for handling e.g.
fertilizers & dyestuff
 To remove moisture which may lead to corrosion e.g.
drying of gaseous fuels
 To improve flow ability and handling of substance
 To stabilize moisture sensitive drug such as aspirin
 To provide definite properties e.g. free flowing

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 The drying of solids depend on the following factors :

1.Temperature ↑ → Rate of drying ↑

2.Surface area of dryer. ↑ → Rate of drying ↑

3.Type of dryer (static or moving)

4.Type of material (porous or non porous)

Evaporation Vs Drying
1. The term drying usually refers the removal of relatively small
amounts of water from solid or nearly solid material. The term
evaporation is usually limited to the removal of relatively large amounts
of water from solutions.
2. In most cases drying involves the removal of water at temperatures
below its boiling point, whereas evaporation means the removal of water
by boiling a solution. 5
 Selection of the drying method and equipment depend on
the following factors :

1. The heat sensitivity of the product

2. Its physical characteristics prior to drying

3. The nature of the solvent to be removed

4. The need

5. The scale of operation

6. Available sources of heat 6

Commonly Used Terms in Drying

1. Equilibrium Moisture Content:

If any material is exposed to air, at any definite
temperature and humidity, it will either lose or gain water
until an equilibrium point is reached. This is the EMC
“Equilibrium Moisture Content”. It depends on the nature
of the material
2. Bound Moisture:
a. It is the water present in the material “retained in small
capillaries, adsorbed on surface or as a solution in cell
wall”

3. Free Moisture:
It is the water in excess of equilibrium moisture content
(EMC)
7
8
7 to 8 per cent.

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Why So Many Dryers

 Thousands of different products dried in industry, often

new products, new processes, high production rates etc., need
new type of dryer to use
 Various fuels (gas, oil, flue gases, waste heat etc.)
 Environmental regulations
 Need to reduce costs
 Need to consider drying system rather than dryer, i.e. Pre-
and post- drying stages are important and often cost more
than dryer

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Classification of Dryers

 There is no simple way of classifying drying equipment

 Some are continuous and others operate batchwise; some
agitate the solids and others are essentially unagitated
 Some dryers can handle almost any kind of material while
some are limited to the type of feed
 Major divisions may be made among

1.Dryers in which solid is directly exposed to a hot gas which

is usually air
2.Dryers in which heat is transferred to the solid from an
external medium such as condensing steam, usually through a
metal surface with which solid
11 is in contact
Cont….

3. Dryers that are heated by radiant energy.

Adiabatic or Direct Dryers (heating media is exposed to solid)
Non-adiabatic or indirect Dryers (an external heating media is
used to dry the solid)

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Mechanism of Drying

 Drying mechanism may be made as follows,

1.Mechanical Drying (grain drying, coffee drying etc.)

2.Thermal Drying (biosolids, municipal wastewater solids etc.)
3.Vacuum Drying (paper, long pieces of wood, cereal grains or
corn flakes, washing powder, milk powder etc.)
4.Freeze Drying (natural mummies, to conserve special strains,
floral preservation)

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14
Drying Equipment

 The dryer may be:

A- Static bed drying:
The material is static while hot air is moving above it.
Disadvantages of static bed:
1. Size reduction is needed
2. Conc. will differ from bottom to surface  water soluble
substances will concentrate at the surface.
B- Moving bed drying:
The material to be dried is moving inside hot air.
Drying occurs from all surfaces so it has a faster rate.
Advantages of moving bed:
1. ↑ drying rate (10 - 20 times faster).
2. Each granule acts as a single
15 bed.
Tray Dryers

 Batch tray dryer

 It operates by passing hot air over the surface of wet solids
in the trays inside the oven
 Thermal efficiency of air is improved by: recirculating the
air over the heater
 Handle any type of material
 Cheaper
 Easy to operate

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Screen Conveyor Dryers

 Continuous dryer
 It operates by travelling metal screen through a long
chamber or tunnel
 Handle variety of materials
 Low cost
 Steam consumption is very low
 Easy to control the drying conditions

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Screen Conveyor Dryer

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Tower Dryers

 Continuous dryer
 It operates by showering of material to be dried
 Turbo dryer consists of a stack of slowly rotating circular
trays
 Material is fed onto the top tray
 After one revolution the material is wiped onto the next
lower tray where the operation is repeated
 The trays are contained in an enclosure in which heated air
or gas is circulated by internal fans
 For Free Flowing, non-sticky, non-dusting products
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Tower Dryers

Handle variety of materials

 High cost
 Steam consumption is very high
 Difficult to control the drying conditions
 It occupy small floor space
 The solvent can be recovered
Annular shelves rotate at 1 rpm
 Capacity up to 10TPH
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 Turbo Dryer

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XpohB2hUoM
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Rotary Dryers

 Continuous dryer
 The rotary dryer is a type of industrial dryer employed to
reduce or minimize liquid moisture content
 Dryer is made up of a large, rotating cylindrical tube,
usually supported by concrete columns or steel beams
 It can handle variety of materials
 Efficiency is higher
 Power consumption is lower

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Working Principle of Rotary Dryers

 The dryer slopes slightly so that the discharge end is lower

than the material feed end in order to convey the material
through the dryer under gravity
 The material to be dried enters the dryer & as the dryer
rotates the material is lifted up by a series of internal fins,
lining the inner wall of the dryer.
 When the material gets high enough to roll back off the
fins, it falls back down to the bottom of the dryer, passing
through the hot gas stream as it falls
 Radial flights/fins serve to agitate the material and to
provide uniform mixing and drying
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Fins In Rotary Dryers

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Working Principle of Rotary Dryers

 This gas stream can either be moving towards the discharge

end, or towards the feed end from the discharge end
The gas stream can be made up of a mixture of air &
combustion gases from a burner, in which the dryer is called a
(direct) heated dryer
 The gas stream may consist of air or another gas that is
preheated
 Thermal efficiency of the dryer is very high and heat loss
through the cylinder wall is minimal

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Rotary Dryer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk9uS6Yxb7o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3SBE41vJ64
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 Steam Tube Rotary Dryer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAZ355BpYtw
Application of Rotary Dryers

 Metallic oxides
 Powdered materials
 Insulation materials
 Metal powders
 Carbon black pigment
 Industrial chemicals
 Food industry
 Mineral drying
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Limitation of Rotary Dryers

Wet and sticky products cause clogging of the inlet and

transfer section of the dryer drum

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Types of Rotary Dryers

Type Residence Main Advantages Major

time Limitations
• Rotary 30- 120 min Flexible •Capital intensive
(Conventional Large turndown ratio •Large Foot
direct type) prints
Axial gas flow •High running
cost
• Rotary 30- 120 min As above •Capital intensive
(Indirect or direct Higher efficiency than • Not suited for
+ indirect) above, Smaller than sticky materials
steam tube dryer above
• Yamato 20-60 • Smaller size due to Not for fine
(Direct gas higher transfer rates particles
injected into • Higher thermal
rolling bed) efficiency
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Screw Conveyor Dryers

 Continuous dryer
 Nonadiabatic drying
 Connected parallel to get greater length
 Its rpm is 2-30
 Handle too fines and too sticky
 Recovery of volatile solvent from solvent wet solids,
known as desolventizers
 Thin film dryers

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Screw Conveyor Dryers (SCD)

 A screw conveyor dryer consists of a helical flight fastened

around a pipe or solid shaft, mounted within a jacketed tubular
or U-shaped trough
 Inert gas-swept to carry off the evaporated moisture to the
atmosphere or to condenser
 SCD may be operated at atmospheric pressure or under
vacuum

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Schematics of Screw Conveyor Dryer

Wet Hot water

material
N2

N2

Screw
Screw

Hot water

Dry
Product

Gear Motor
Box
Application of SCD

 Free-flowing to non free-flowing materials

 Fine powder to lumpy materials
 Sticky and Fibrous materials
 Materials which become friable at some stage during the
drying process
 Dusty and toxic materials
 Materials which are difficult to handle

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38
A conventional spray dryer
consists of the following main
components:
•Drying chamber (1)
•Hot air system and air
distribution (2)
•Feed system (3)
•Atomizing device (4)
•Powder separation system
(5)
•Pneumatic conveying and
cooling system (6)
•Fluid bed after-drying/cooling
(7)
•Instrumentation and
automation (8)

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* Classification of spray dryer
* Height-to-diameter ratio (2:1 or 5:1)
* Air flow type
* Atomizer type
* Rotary or centrifugal disk
* High pressure nozzle
* Pneumatic atomizer

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* Red arrows shows
heated air
* Blue arrows represents
liquid droplets
forming particles

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* Three fundamental stages are involved to accomplish
spray drying

1. The liquid feed is atomized into fine droplets

2. Liquid evaporation from the droplet, resulting in final
(dried) product
3. The dried product is separated from the gas stream and
collected in a vessel

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* Food encapsulation
* Production of hollow particles
* Production of porous material
* Control of physical properties
* Production of micrometer-sized low melting point
materials
* Flexible process
* Temperature sensitive materials can be dried

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* Four main parameters affect spray drying

1. Direction of flow of inlet gas

2. Temperature of the gas
3. Degree and uniformity of atomization
4. Degree of aeration of feed

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* Pharmaceutical industry
* Food industry e.g.
* Egg drying
* Animal feeds
* Juices
* Yeast & yogurt
* Milk
* Cake mixes
* Creamers
* Material processing
* Powder particles of metals & semiconductors

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| 45
Solids Handling in Dryers

 Most industrial dryers handle particulate solids

 In adiabatic dryers, the solids are exposed to the gas by the
following ways:
1.Cross-circulation Drying
2.Through-circulation Drying
3.Solids are showered downward and gas upward
4.Fluidized bed Drying
5.Solids are completely entrained and then mechanical
separated
6.Spray Drying 46
Solids Handling in Dryers

In Nonadiabatic dryers, the solids are exposed to the hot

surface or source of heat by the following ways:
1.Stationary or slowly moving horizontal hot surface
2.Solids are moved over a heated surface
3.Solids are moved by gravity over an inclined heated surface

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48
Principles of Drying

 There is no single theory of drying that covers all materials

and dryer types
 No unified approach
 General principles
 Dryer are not designed by user
 Dryer are designed by manufacturer

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Stages in Drying System

Pre-drying Post-drying
Drying
Stages Stages

• Feeders • May involve • Cooling

• Pre-forming chemical reactions. • Agglomeration
(extrusion) • Solvent recovery
• Backmixing (if applicable)
• Metering • Grinding
• Blending • Gas cleaning
• Mechanical (cyclone, filters,
dewatering scrubbers, etc.)
storage • Product
collection
packaging
Temperature Patterns in Dryers

 The way in which temperatures vary in a dryer depends

upon the
 Nature and liquid content of the feedstock
 Temperature of heating medium
 Drying time
 Allowable final temperature of dry solids

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Drying Periods

•Necessary to remove free moisture from

the surface and moisture from the interior of
the material
•If moisture as a function of time, a smooth
curve is obtained
•Drying rate curve varies with the structure
and type of material
•There are two well-defined zones:
•AB, where the rate of drying is constant
•BC, where there is a steady fall in the rate
of drying as the moisture content is reduced.
•B is the critical moisture content.

In Curve 2,
•DE represents constant rate
•EF and FC are falling rate , first and final
respectively.
•The drying of soap gives rise to a curve of
type 1 and sand to a curve of type 2.
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53
54
55
56
 Bound moisture Unbound moisture
100%

R.H. 50%

Free moisture
Content
T= Constant

X* X Moisture Content (dry basis)

Drying Rate Curve

Classification of Dryers – Solid Exposure to Heat Conditions

Dryers Typical residence time

within dryer
0 - 10 10 - 30 5 - 10 10 - 60 1 - 6
sec sec min min hr
Convection
1. Belt conveyor dryer X
2. Flash dryer X
3. Fluid bed dryer X
4. Rotary dryer X
5. Spray dryer X
6. Tray dryer (batch) X
Tray dryer (continuous) X
Conduction
1. Drum dryer X
2. Steam jacket rotary dryer X
3. Steam tube rotary dryer X
4. Tray dryer (batch) X
5. Tray dryer (continuous) X
 Product Classification and Dryers Types as an aid to Selection

Dryers Evap. Rate Fluid, liquid Pastes Powders Granules, Operation

(kg/m2/hr) suspension pellets

Forced 7.5 - - - Good Batch

Convection
(through flow)

Double Cone 10 - Poor Fair Poor Batch

FBD 130 - - Good Good Continuous

Film Drum 22 Good Fair - - Continuous

Flash 750 - Fair Good Fair Continuous

Rotary 33 - Poor Good Fair Continuous

(indirect)

Spin Flash 185 - Good Good Fair Continuous

Spray 15 Good - - - Continuous

Classification of Solids

 Group I: Nonporous or Capillary- porous solids with large

pore sizes. Only free moisture is removed e.g. NaCl,

 Group II: Uniformly and non-uniformly porous materials

with pores sizes of 6nm. Contains free moisture, eg.
Phenobarbital, Sodium perborate

 Group III: Microporous or colloidal- capillary- porous

material of size 4-6 mm, eg. Glucose, sulfadimethoxine and of
size 2-4 mm, eg. Calcium gluconate

 Group IV: Ultra-microporous materials. Pore size

comparable to molecule size. Intense drying is required to
remove moisture content as low as 0.2- 0.1% or less
60
Classification of Granular Material

Group Pore size (nm) Drying time in Types of dryers

suspended state recommended
I > 100 0.5 - 3.0 sec. Cyclone dryers
Flash dryers
Two- stage flash dryers
II 100 - 6 3 - 30 sec. Two- stage flash dryers
Fast spouted bed
III 6-4 0.5 - 2 min. Vortex dryers
Batch dryers
4-2 2 - 20 min. Fluid bed
Vibrated fluid bed
Batch dryers
IV Ultra-micropores, particle 10 - 60 min Vibrated fluid bed
size 1 - 2 mm Multistage fluid bed
Batch dryers
40 - 90 min. Batch dryers

Particle size > 2 mm > 90 min. Suspended state dryers

not recommended
Heat Transfer in Dryers

Calculation of Heat Duty

Heat must be applied to a dryer to accomplish the following

1.Heat the feed to the vaporization temperature

2.Vaporize the liquid
3.Heat the solids to their final temperature
4.Heat the vapor to its final temperature
5.Heat the air or gas to its final temperature

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Heat transfer coefficients

63
Equilibrium Moisture Curves at 25 ◦C

64
Cross-circulation Drying

 When both heat and mass transfer involved, the mechanism

of drying depends upon
 Nature of solids & Method of contacting the solids and
the heating medium
 Drying conditions are carefully controlled in the
production of pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals
 Drying under constant drying conditions

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