The drying performance of a novel device capable of mobilising a bed of fibrous materials is evaluated. The drying kinetic of the vegetable product used for this work, cut lamina tobacco particles, was determined from fixed bed experiments. A falling-rate period was observed for the entire drying curve. The results showed that the drying rate is controlled by internal mass transfer mechanism for gas superficial velocities above 0.8 m/ s. The proposed model is based on an effective liquid diffusion coefficient that varies with solids temperature according to an Arrhenius-type relationship. Batch drying experiments were carried out in the mobilised bed apparatus under various conditions of inlet air temperature, humidity and flowrate. Assuming perfect mixing and no internal resistance to heat transfer for the solids, the performance of the mobile bed can be predicted using the proposed internal liquid diffusion model
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