Chemical Plants

Drying
Flavio Manenti, CMIC Dept. ‘Giulio Natta’
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Definition
• Drying operations (partially) remove water or other liquids from solid
materials
▪ Drying is often the final step in a series of operations, then the product is
ready for packing
▪ In biorefineries, drying is middle- or up-stream operation
• Drying unit operations exploit different principles
▪ Mechanical (presses, centrifuges)
▪ Thermal (vaporization)
• Mechanical treatment is cheaper than the thermal one
▪ Thermal treatment is usually subsequent
• Dryness
▪ Complete drying (bone-dry products) is not so common
▪ It is a relative concept
• Reduction of the liquid content

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Solids handling
• In adiabatic dryers, the solids are exposed to the hot gas:
▪ Cross-circulation drying: gas blows across a bed of solids supported on a
sheet
▪ Through-circulation drying: gas is blown through a bed of granular solids
supported on a screen (low velocity to prevent entrainment)
▪ Rotary drying: solids are showered downward through a slowly moving
gas stream (some entrainment; some non-adiabatic dryers)
▪ Fluidized drying: gas passes through the bed at good velocity
(entrainment)
▪ Suspended drying: entrained solids by high-velocity gas stream
• Mechanical separation
▪ Spray drying

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Heat-transfer
• It is possible to dry many materials by heating them (well) above the
boiling point of the absorbed liquid
▪ Despite the difficulties in diffusion in the solid or through a gas

• Heat is provided for:

▪ Heat the feed (to vaporization temperature)
▪ Vaporize the liquid
▪ Heat the solids (to the final temperature)
▪ Heat the vapor (to the final temperature)
▪ Heat the air or added gas (to the final temperature)

• Vaporization of liquid is the chief step

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Heat-transfer
• Heat transferred per unit mass of solid is:
qT
= c p , s (Tsb − Tsa ) + X a c p , L (Tv − Tsa ) + ( X a − X b )  + X b c p , L (Tsb − Tv ) + ( X a − X b ) c p ,v (Tva − Tv )
ms
• m^._s is mass of bone-dry solids
• X_a is the initial liquid content in mass per unit mass of bone-dry solid
• X_b is the final liquid content in mass per unit mass of bone-dry solid
• T_sa is the feed temperature Equation still applies
although the vaporization
• T_v is the vaporization temperature
occurs over a range of
• T_sb is the final solids temperature temperatures
• T_va is the final vapor temperature
Total (final-initial)
• lambda is heat of vaporization enthalpy change is
• C_p,i are specific heat of solid, liquid and vapor independent of the path

• In adiabatic dryers the heat transferred to S, L, V comes from the

cooling of gas
▪ For continuous ones: qT = mg cs ,b (Thb − Tha )
• m^._g is the mass rate of dry gas
• c_sb is humid heat of gas at inlet humidity

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Heat-transfer and equilibria
• The basic heat-transfer equation applies to all the section of the
dryers
q = UAT
▪ q is the rate of heat-transfer
▪ U is the overall coefficient
▪ A is the heat-transfer are
▪ mean-deltaT is the average temperature difference
• Not necessarily the log mean

• Air entering a dryer is seldom completely dry

▪ It contains some moisture and has a definite relative humidity
• Such a portion of water in the wet solid cannot be removed due to
the so-called equilibrium moisture
▪ Due to the relative humidity
• The free water is the difference between
▪ The total water content of the solid and the equilibrium water content

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Drying equipment

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Dryers for solids and pastes
▪ Typical batch tray dryer
▪ Chamber, trucks F, 2 racks
H
• Many trays with solids
▪ Heated air is circulated
• by fan C
• and motor D
▪ Air passes over heaters E
▪ Enters the ports G
▪ Some moist air is
continuously vented by the
duct B
▪ The wheels I allows
shorter dead times
• Also indirect (freeze drying)
▪ Dedicated lecture

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Screen-conveyor dryers
▪ A layer (25-150mm) thick of solid material to be dried
• is slowly carried on a traveling metal screen
• through a long drying tunnel
▪ Series of sections
• each one with its own fan
▪ Air temperature and humidity can vary for each section
▪ Air usually passes upward
▪ 2 m large / up to 50 m long to achieve 120 min of drying
▪ Low steam consumption
• 2 kg steam / kg of water evaporated

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Tower dryers
▪ Series of circular trays
• Mounted one above the
other
• On a central rotating shaft
▪ Solid is fed at the top
• And fall down to tray by
tray
▪ Gas passes through all the
trays
• Co-/counter-current
• Turbodryer
▪ Gas recirculation
▪ Usually, 0.6-2.4 m/s gas
velocity
▪ Cooling section for dried
solids

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Rotary dryers
▪ Revolving cylindrical shell, horizontal, slightly inclined toward the outlet
▪ Wet feed at one end, dry product is discharged at the other one
▪ As the shell rotates, internal flights lift the solid
▪ Heating is by direct contact solid/hot gas
• A dryer shell; B shell-supporting rolls; C drive gear; D air discharge hood; E
discharge fan; F feed chute; G lifting flights; H product discharge; J air heater

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Fluid-bed dryers
▪ Solids are fluidized by drying
gas
▪ Wet feed is provided at the
top of the bed
▪ Dry product is collected from
the side, near bottom
▪ Random distribution of
residence times
• 30-120 s for surface drying
• 15-30 min for internal particle
drying
▪ Small particles are heated to
the exit dry-bulb temperature
of the fluidized gas
▪ Particle breakage is possible
• Cyclones are always present

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Thin-film dryers
▪ Accept liquid or slurry feed
▪ Competitive with spray dryers
▪ Usually, two sections
• Vertical agitator-evaporator dryer
• Partially wet solid is discharged
• Residual liquid is further reduced
to desired value in the second
section
▪ High thermal efficiency
▪ Good for removing and
recovering solvents from solids
▪ Somewhat limited in heat-transfer
area
▪ Acceptable feed rate:
• 100-200 kg/m^2/h

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Equipment
• Dryers for solutions and slurries
▪ Ad hoc topic (next presentation)

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Units

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Units

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Industrial applications
• Polyethylene terephthalate plant SACMI SpA
▪ Solid state polymerizer
▪ Hot-nitrogen direct drying unit

• Process control
▪ Optimal control

Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”

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Thanks for the kind attention

Flavio Manenti

Professor of Chemical Plants and Operations

President-elect of the Computer Aided Process Engineering (CAPE) – EFCE’s Working Party
UEFA-licensed and Federal Soccer Coach (Nazionale Italiana U15; Virtus Bergamo U15)

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
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Flavio Manenti – Dipartimento CMIC “Giulio Natta”