OBJECTIVE:

To produce drying and drying rate curves for a wet solid being dried with air of fixed
temperature and humidity.

ABSTRACT:
This experiment was performed to observe the effect of moisture content present in the given
sample with respect to time. Also, it was conducted to analyze the different regions in the drying
rate versus moisture content curve. To observe the effect of air velocity, temperature of air and
moisture level on the drying process at a certain temperature and humidity value. Drying is a
heat and mass-transfer process for the removal of relatively small amounts of moisture contents
or water from a material or a process stream. Tray driers are the simplest and cheapest dryer type
used in many industrial applications. A sample of wet sand was taken that was spread over trays
arranged in racks and the hot air was passed over its surface. The moisture level was recorded for
a given period of time and the sample was also weighed to observe the changes. After that, the
results were tabulated and graphs were obtained. Further, these experimental observations were
compared with the theoretical ones.
APPARATUS:
Tray drier apparatus, digital weight balance, wet and dry bulb thermometer and stop watch.
REAGENTS:

Sand, air.
INTRODUCTION:
Like evaporation, drying is a mass-transfer process used to remove moisture or water from a
process stream. In evaporation, the final product is a non-volatile liquid while the ultimate
product of drying is a solid. Drying process decreases the moisture content for better storage and
handling of the product. It also maintains the product quality for storage and transportation and
reduce cost. Various effects of external drying medium such as air velocity, humidity,
temperature and wet material shape etc. are studied with respect to their influence on the drying
rate. There are many methods of drying like application of hot air, contact drying, dielectric
drying, freezing drying and supercritical drying. This method of drying involves with different
type of drying equipment such as tray dryers, vacuum-shelf indirect dryers, continuous tunnel
dryers, rotary dryers, drum dryers and spray dryers. The common type of driers used in many
industrial applications involves tray driers as their drying operation. The dryers are made of trays

Figure 1: Labelled diagram of tray drier apparatus

held in a cabinet, which is connected to a source of hot air. The operation mechanism of tray
drying is the heat is channeled by an air current sweeping across the trays, by conduction from
heated trays or heated shelves on which the trays lie, or by radiation from heated surfaces. The
tray must be tight-fitting in the cabinet to air form bypassing the material that needed to be dried.
The drying time by using tray dryers usually need a longer time. (Weihe 1984)

THEORY:
Tray dryer operates by passing hot air over the surface of a wet solid that is spread over trays
arranged in racks. Tray dryers are the simplest and least-expensive dryer type. This type is most
widely used in the food and pharmaceutical industries. The advantage of tray dryers, apart from
their low initial cost, is their versatility. This process involves heat and mass-transfer. Heat is
supplied to the product to evaporate the liquid contained, and mass is transferred as a vapor into
the surrounding gas. There are two distinct drying zones involved in the drying of solids, known
as the constant-rate period and the falling-rate period. The two zones are divided by a breaking
point called the critical moisture content. In constant-rate period zone, moisture is considered to
be evaporating at a rate determined by the diffusion from a saturated surface through the
stationary air film that is in contact with it. This period depends upon the air velocity,
temperature of the air, humidity and temperature of the saturated surface. In falling-rate period
zone, the surface is no longer saturated, it will tend to rise above the wet bulb temperature. This
region is controlled by vapor diffusion. (Niemann, Stueble et al. 2014)

PROCEDURE:
 Dry sand was taken to fill the four trays to a depth of about 10 mm each were to be
accurately weighed before being saturated with water in a container.
  The sand was removed from the container and drained of excess “free” water before
being loaded evenly and smoothly into the sand drying trays, taking care to avoid any
spillage.
 The total weight of the wet sand was noted before drying commence.
 At some arbitrary time (t=0), switch was turned on and the fan speed control was set to
mid-position and the heater power control to maximum letting them remain constant
throughout the experiment.
 The total weight of sand in the trays was recorded at regular time intervals until drying
was completed.

OBSERVATIONS & CALCULATIONS:

Weight of dry sand, trays and stand = 3.228 kg
XE = Equilibrium Moisture Content

TABLE # 1: TIME AND MOISTURE CONTENT:

Time (min) Weight of wet sand (kg) Moisture content (XE)
0 3.55 0.0997
10 3.459 0.0715
20 3.418 0.0588
30 3.398 0.0526
40 3.377 0.0461
50 3.365 0.0424
60 3.345 0.0362

GRAPH OF TIME VERSUS MOISTURE CONTENT (XE):

0.12

0.1
Moisture content (XE)

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Time (min)
TABLE # 2: DRYING RATE AND MOISTURE CONTENT:
Moisture content (XE) Drying rate (min-1 )
0.0715 0.0091
0.0588 0.0066
0.0526 0.0050
0.0461 0.0043
0.0424 0.0037
0.0362 0.0034

GRAPH OF DRYING RATE VERSUS MOISTURE CONTENT:

0.01
0.01
0.01
Drying rate (min-1)

0.01
0.01
0.01
0
0
0
0
0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Moisture content (XE)

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION:

In this experiment, the drying process is considered as batch because the sand sample is inserted
into the drying equipment and the drying operation proceeds for a given period of time. The
study of this experiment is the drying rate curve based on the moisture level of the sample within
the time taken. The results are recorded in the form of tables and graphs. As it is evident from the
first graph that the moisture content decreases when the time increases. Therefore, the weight of
wet sand also starts reducing until the end for every 10 min. The reason behind this phenomenon
is that the water content present in the sand is vaporized due to the flow of hot air through the
sample. The upper surface of the sample is dried up therefore, it results in the difference of water
concentration between the upper and bottom surface of the sand. Due to this, the moisture is
transferred from the bottom to the upper surface and this is known as diffusion process. From the
literature, the graph will be having a trend of linearly decreasing but our graph is not showing
this behavior. This might be due to the moisture of sand initially containing some water.
Furthermore, the effect of decreasing moisture content on the drying rate is also analyzed and a
curve is obtained. When the moisture content is high inside the sand, the process will take a
longer time to dry it. This region can be seen in the graph where the drying process is stable and
rate is constant. After the equilibrium moisture content, the falling-rate period starts.
Theoretically, the drying rate curve will increase and then it will remain constant. From the
experimental graph, it is shown that there is some inaccuracy which might be due to the
improper working of the heater.

REFERENCES:
1. Niemann, A. W., et al. (2014). Tray dryer, Google Patents.

2. Weihe, C. R. (1984). Tray dryer, Google Patents.