Drying

Theoretical Background:
Drying is an important unit operation that is widely used in different industries ranging
from pharmaceutical to food industries. It is one of the oldest and most used operation in which
the objective is to remove water from a wet material. Drying is generally defined as the transfer of
liquid from a wet solid into an unsaturated gas phase. With almost all of the industries nowadays
requires reduction of moisture contents in the materials used, drying process is used. Such as in
the food industries, drying is used as a preservation technique that reduces the food’s moisture
content as low as possible to make the food last longer due to the small amount of water present.
During drying, the wet solid immediately adjust its temperature until it reaches the steady
state. The temperature of the solid and the rate of drying may increase or decrease in order to reach
the steady-state condition. At steady-state, the temperature of the wet solid surface will be equal
to that of the wet bulb temperature of the gas inside the dryer, oven in our case. When the wet solid
and the surrounding reach the wet bulb temperature of the gas and are at steady-state, the rate of
drying also remains constant. This is called the constant rate of drying.
The rate of drying is described by the equation give below.
𝐿𝑆 𝑑𝑋
𝑅=−
𝐴 𝑑𝑡
𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟
Where: 𝑅 is the rate of drying with units of 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠−𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑎

𝐿𝑆 is mass of dry solid used

𝐴 is the exposed surface area
𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟
𝑋 is the moisture content in 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑑

𝑡 is time
The equation given can be integrated over the time interval for drying from 𝑋1 at 𝑡1 = 0 to 𝑋2 at
𝑡2 = 𝑡. At constant rate of drying, 𝑅 becomes 𝑅𝐶 and the equation becomes
𝐿𝑆
𝑡= (𝑋 − 𝑋2 )
𝐴𝑅𝐶 1
In this form, the constant rate of drying can be obtained by plotting 𝑋1 − 𝑋2 vs 𝑡 and getting the
slope of the line.