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Lab Report 1 Tray Drier
Lab Report 1 Tray Drier
Introduction
One of the important experiments is drying experiment. There are several drying
equipments such as vacuum-shelf indirect dryers, continuous tunnel dryers, rotary
dryers, drum dryers, spray dryers and tray dryers.
Tray dryers are used for removing water from material which can be lumpy solid or a
pasty solid. Spreading uniformly solid on a metal tray which has depth 10 mm to
100mm is put in cabinet of dryer.
Water is removed by fan which recirculates heated air over the surface of the trays.
Air is heated by electrical energy and 10-20 % of air in cabinet is fresh air, remaining
is recirculating air.
In this experiment, tray dryer is used. [1]
1
T is seen as Tw on thermometer. The difference in T and T w is due to latent heat of
evaporation.
2
Rate of convective heat transfer from T to Tw is [1]:
q= h (T - Tw) A (6)
Substituting Eq. (5) into Eq. (6) gives:
(H – HW) / (T – Tw) = - (h/ MB ky) / λw (7)
(h / MB ky) is called psychrometric ratio. In addition the adiabatic saturation lines can
be also used for wet bulb lines with reasonable accuracy but for only water vapor.
Therefore, humidity of air water vapor mixture measure can be done by using wet
bulb determination.[1]
Knowledge about the basic mechanisms of rates of drying, obtaining some
experimental measurements of drying rates is necessary in most cases. Therefore,
data of loss in weight of moisture during drying at different time intervals should be
taken without interrupting the operation. In addition data should be converted to rate
of drying curves.[1]
Xt= (W – Ws) / Ws (8)
Where Xt is moisture content (kg total water/kg dry solid), W is weight of the wet solid
and Ws is weight of dry solid in kg.
Then, the equilibrium moisture content X* (kg equilibrium moisture/ kg dry solid) is
determined. After that, the free moisture content X (kg free water / kg dry solid) is
calculated for each Xt.[1]
X = Xt – X* (9)
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2. Experimental
Making material balance over tray dryer apparatus with using psychrometric chart
and determining performance of tray dryer with respect to moisture content and
drying rate curves at different operation conditions is the objective of the experiment.
The tray drying unit consists of mainly an air duct, electrically heater element and
digital balance. Air duct blows hot air with an axial flow fan impeller. The velocity of
air can be arranged up to 1.5 m/s and the temperature can be arranged up to 80 ℃ .
Weight of the sample is measured by in-situ monitor and air flow rate is measured by
a vane anemometer. Figure 5 shows experimental setup. During experiment, in time
intervals, weight of sample which is being dried, dry bulb temperature, wet bulb
temperature is measured. Temperatures are measured before and after trays. [3]
5
Reference
[1] Geankoplis “Transport Processes and Separation Process Principles”, 4/e.
[2]http://www.eng.auburn.edu/users/tplacek/courses/4860/Lab%20Notes%20for%20
Drying.pdf
[3] Lab manual Tray Dryer
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Nomenclature
q= amount of heat lost by vaporization (W, J/s)
MA= molecular weight of water
NA= mol of water evaporating/ s.m2
λw= latent heat of vaporization at Tw (J/kg H2O)
A= surface area (m2)
ky= mass transfer coefficient (mol/s.m2)
yw = mole fraction of water vapor in the gas at the surface
y= mole fraction of water vapor in the gas
MA= molecular weight of water
MB= molecular weight of air
Xt =moisture content (kg total water/kg dry solid)
X* = equilibrium moisture content (kg equilibrium moisture/ kg dry solid)
X = free moisture content (kg free water / kg dry solid)
R = drying rate (kg water/h.m2)
Ls = dry solid used (kg)
A = exposed surface area for drying (m2)