Drying Kinetics of Granules in a Fluidized Bed Dryer

摘要

Drying is one of the most important methods for industrial processing since moisture content is an extremely relevant parameter affecting the crucial properties of final products.Nowadays,fluidized bed drying technology is widely employed in various industries.Comparing to other drying methods,fluidized beds generate high efficient thermal conditions.In the current study,drying kinetics of cornstarch granules was investigated in a fluidized bed dryer.The drying experiments were performed at different temperatures and velocities of the inlet drying air and in different granule sizes.The results showed that air temperature had the most significant effect on the drying rate among the three variables.Five drying empirical models were fitted to the experimental moisture data and were evaluated using the determination coefficient and chi-square.Four of the models were found to be suitable for describing the drying behavior of cornstarch granules.Therefore,it is possible for them to be applied to estimate the drying end-point of corustarch granules as well as to design and scale up of the drying process for the similar products in the fluidized bed dryer.