Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Chemical Engineering Research and Design

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cherd

Computational fluid dynamic design of spent

coffee ground cabinet dryer using recycled heat
from air compressor

Chattip Prommuak a , Norapat Tharangkool b , Prasert Pavasant c ,

Pimporn Ponpesh d , Teeraya Jarunglumlert e,∗
a Energy Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
b Department of Chemical Engineering, School of Energy Science and Engineering, Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science
and Technology, Rayong, Thailand
c Thai Roong Rueng Research and Development Co., Ltd., Bangkok, Thailand
d Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand
e Faculty of Science, Energy and Environment, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok (Rayong

Campus), Rayong, Thailand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study designed a cabinet dryer assembled to an air compressor to utilize a free-of-
Received 13 July 2019 charge waste heat for drying. Spent coffee ground (SCG), a residue from coffee brewing, was
Received in revised form 16 the tested material. Applying computational fluid dynamics (CFD), an appropriate cabinet
September 2019 dryer configuration could be achieved. As varying the hot air inlet/outlet position, the best
Accepted 10 October 2019 drying characteristics providing uniform air flow occurred when hot air entered the chamber
Available online 18 October 2019 at the top and left the chamber at the bottom, opposite side to the inlet. A model dryer
was then developed and used to validate the CFD prediction of dryer capacity which was
Keywords: dependent on the maximum numbers of mounted trays and the thickness of SCG layer.
Spent coffee ground The computational prediction agreed well with the experimental results, showing that the
Computational fluid dynamics dryer loading SCG at 3 cm thickness performed best with two trays in the chamber. Adding
Dryer another tray would result in an obstruction of the air flow, leaving more than 20% of the
Air compressor moisture content in the final product. Experimental determination of drying duration for
Waste heat drying SCG with varying thickness indicated that each centimeter of the increase in SCG
bed thickness extended the drying duration by 3 fold. Particularly at the SCG layer thickness
of 4 cm, this fitted well with the simulation results at 97.2% accuracy. Mounted with 3 trays,
each loaded 300 g SCG (1 cm bed thickness), the dryer could complete 6 cycles within regular
operation hours of a coffee shop (12 h) and thus accounted for 5400 g of SCG as daily capacity
of a dryer.
© 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction whose benefits were often disregarded. Ended up as municipal waste,

SCG was usually seen as an environmental burden.
Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages and the second most As a matter of fact, SCG components including cellulose, hemicel-
traded product in the world after petroleum (Campos-Vega et al., 2015). lulose, lignin, fatty acid, and other polysaccharides, as well as other
Each ton of coffee brewing produces 650 kg of spent coffee ground (SCG) bioactive compounds possess good potential in many applications

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: teeraya.j@sciee.kmutnb.ac.th (T. Jarunglumlert).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cherd.2019.10.017
0263-8762/© 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
76 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84

of around 2.8 USD/kg. However, this is only the case where the biomass
is dried and preserved for longer storage.
Nomenclature
Unfortunately, due to the coffee brewing process, SCG contains high
A Surface area (m2 ) level of moisture and is easily rotten within just a few days. To make
cp Specific heat capacity at constant pressure use of this biomass, it is necessary that SCG is dried, soon before it
became rancid, and it is best that drying SCG be carried out right at the
(kJ/(kg K))
coffee shop.
cv Concentration of vapor in hot air (kg/m3 )
Dewatering of SCG can be carried out most commonly by solar
C1ε Constants used in turbulent model
power. However, this traditional method relies greatly on uncontrol-
C2ε Constants used in turbulent model
lable weather condition, and the process can thus take as short as a few
C3ε Constants used in turbulent model hours to as long as several days which makes it difficult to manage. In
C Constant used in turbulent model this view point, applying external heat through the uses of dryers, e.g.
.D0 . Proportionality constant for diffusivity (m2 /s) rotary drum dryer (Cherry, 1974), fluidized bed dryer (Xu et al., 2006),
Di Diffusion coefficient (m2 /s) cyclonic dryer (Corrêa et al., 2014) and cabinet/tray dryer (Gómez-de
Ea Activation energy for diffusing species la Cruz et al., 2015) will result in a better controlled and manageable
(kJ/mole) process but this suffers from the complexity of the design and installa-
gi Gravity in i-direction tion along with the external energy cost. Among these techniques, tray
dryers provide the most simple structure and economic practicality.
Gb Generation of turbulent kinetic energy due to
Nevertheless, the major drawback of tray dryers is the non-
buoyancy
uniformity in airflow rate and temperature distribution which causes
Gk Generation of turbulent kinetic energy due to
final products to be unequally dried (Ekechukwu and Norton, 1999).
the mean velocity of gradients With this regards, the design of dryers is of paramount importance.
Gm Air flow rate (m3 /s) Dryers with decent configurations would draw air to flow thoroughly
hH Heat transfer coefficient (W/(m2 K)) towards each tray and give uniform final products with an acceptable
k Turbulent kinetic energy amount of remaining moisture.
kt Thermal conductivity (W/(m K)) Saving time and cost for trial-and-error experiments, Com-
mv Evaporation rate (kg/s) putational fluid dynamics (CFD) numerically solves simultaneous
M Moisture content (kg water/kg wet SCG) complicated equations, attaining key parameters in engineering

Mw design, e.g. velocity, temperature, momentum, etc. On top of that, the

Molecular weight (kg/mole)
tool even simulates the characteristic of flowing fluid in particular con-
Psat Saturated pressure (mmHg)
ditions and is therefore widely used in drying technology to predict hot
Pr Prandtl number
air flow patterns for different designs of dryers (Erriguible et al., 2006;
r Radius (m)
Woo et al., 2008; Pinto et al., 2014).
R Ideal gas constant (J/mole K) In this study, a tray dryer assembled with an air conditioner com-
RH,inlet Density of moisture of inlet air (kg vapor/m3 ) pressor is designed to utilize waste heat in drying SCG at coffee shops.
RH,outlet Density of moisture of outlet air (kg vapor/ m3 ) Along with this free-of-charge heat, tray dryers could possibly be an
Sε User defined source term economic option for this case. CFD was used to adjust geometry for the
Sk User defined source term dryer which was determined to draw hot air towards the drying cham-
t Time (s) ber, providing uniform air flow and resulting in the evenly dried final
T Temperature (K) product.
Incorporating the drying in CFD, it is necessary that the drying
Ti Temperature of hot air (K)
function suitable for particular processes is formulated (Khan and
vi Velocity component in i-direction (m/s)
Straatman, 2016). However, the attained function is typically empiri-
vmin Minimum velocity (m/s)
cal, making the accuracy of the results and the practicality of the set
vx Velocity in x-axis direction (m/s) of equations questionable (Norton and Sun, 2006; Kaya et al., 2006,
vy Velocity in y-axis direction (m/s) 2008). In this study, we considered the drying section independently
vz Velocity in z-axis direction (m/s) from CFD. With proper drying rate based on experimental results, dry-
Wx Width of SCG bed in x-axis direction (m) ing equations were formulated and were solved by MATLAB software.
Wy Width of SCG bed in y-axis direction (m) Accordingly, moisture content at particular position of the tray was
known and drying duration for each design was attained. Moreover,
Greek letter the modelled dryer was constructed and was used to verify the simu-
 Density of fluid (kg/m3 ) lation results. Eventually, a design of a tray dryer that dried the highest
 Dynamic viscosity (kg/(m s)) amount of SCG within the working hours of coffee shops was pro-
posed and was validated by a modelled dryer constructed based on
t Eddy viscosity
the simulation results.
ε Turbulent prandtl number for ␧
k Turbulent prandtl number for k
ε Rate of dissipation 2. Materials and methods
 Heat of vaporization for water (kJ/kg)
As the purpose of this study was to utilize the free waste heat
from a composer to dry SCG, the research was proceeded with
(Campos-Vega et al., 2015). Directly used, SCG could be a skin scrub the following steps:
(Cicillini and Guillen, 2009), mushroom growing medium (Fan et al.,
2000) and soil amendment (Vela-Cano et al., 2019). Even with modifica-
tions, it was tested to be an effective metal adsorbent (Naga Babu et al.,
(i) CFD was applied firstly to predict a suitable configuration
2018). Moreover, SCG oil could be processed to biofuel (Campos-Vega
of the dryer, i.e. position of air inlet to be attached to the
et al., 2015) and on top of that its bioactive extracts could be adopted
compressor and position of the air outlet. This step was
as an ingredient in skincare products (Marto et al., 2016), medical sup-
plies, and dietary supplements (Campos-Vega et al., 2015). Therefore, to narrow down the scope of how the prototype should be
SCG today is no longer a rubbish, but is a vendible good with the price developed.
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84 77

Fig. 1 – Designs of tray dryer configuration.

(ii) To verify the accuracy of the simulation, the dryer pro- a turbulent regime. Known to give precise results with short
totype was subsequently developed based on the most computational time, a semi-empirical standard k − ε model is
suitable model dryer obtained from the simulation. Using used for turbulent flow prediction, and is also used to simu-
the prototype, experiments were carried out with the ver- late air flow rate in this study. Accordingly, the simulation is
ification of SCG thicknesses and the number of tray and governed by the set of equations including:
the results were compared with the simulation. continuity equation,
(iii) Evaluation and optimization of dryer performance was
carried out. Here, the drying duration and the capacity of
 
∂ ∂ (vx ) ∂ vy ∂ (vz )
the dryer based on the working hour of a coffee shop were + + + =0 (1)
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z
experimentally determined.

momentum equation in i-direction (i : x, y, z),

2.1. Design of dryer configuration and prediction of
hot air flow pattern  ∂v ∂vi ∂v ∂v

i
 + vx + vy i + vz i
∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z
Computationally derived by ANSYS workbench 15, each design  
was configured in accordance with the outlet of an air condi- ∂ ∂2 vi ∂2 vi ∂2 vi
=− + t 2
+ 2
+ + gi (2)
tioner compressor (40 × 50 cm2 ) used in this study. To fine-tune ∂i ∂x ∂y ∂z2
for the position of air inlet and outlet of the dryer, the thick-
ness of SCG layer was fixed at 3 cm on a single tray with
and energy equation,
the dimension of 30 × 30 × 10 cm3 , while three positions of air
inlet-outlet were varied as illustrated in Fig. 1.
 ∂T   
In order to estimate flow characteristics within each design, ∂T ∂T ∂T ∂2 T ∂2 T ∂2 T
cp + vx + vy + vz = kt + 2 + 2 (3)
the dryer geometries were divided into discrete control vol- ∂t ∂x ∂y ∂z ∂x2 ∂y ∂z
umes and sent to ANSYS Fluent 15 to simulate air velocity
distribution. Moreover, k-transport and ε-transport equations with the
finite volume theory were used to define the direction and
2.1.1. Governing equations scalar of air velocity. kexplains about the kinetic energy of
Based on the air inlet velocity of 6 m/s, Reynold number the system and εwas the dissipation of kinetic energy and are
occurred to be higher than 2000, meaning that the flow was in denoted as follows:
78 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84

k-transport equation: Therefore, finding the maximum number of trays and the
  ∂k 
highest mass loaded on each tray that still give qualified final
∂ (k) ∂ ∂ i products with moisture content below 20% where SCG is safe
+ (εvi ) = + + Gk + Gb − ε + Sk
∂t ∂xi ∂xj k ∂xj from microorganism growth (Guine and Castro, 2002) is the
(4) aim of this investigation. Here, the thickness (in cm) of SCG
layer and the number of trays were varied from 1 to 4 while
the inlet-outlet position that gives the most uniform velocity
ε-transport equation: selected from previous section is fixed.
  ∂ε 
To optimize the number of trays and the thickness of SCG
∂ (ε) ∂ ∂ i loaded on each tray, the air flow characteristics was again
+ (εvi ) = +
∂t ∂xi ∂xj ε ∂xj simulated by ANSYS fluent 15. The simulated velocity from
each design was further compared with the minimum veloc-
ε ε2
+ C1ε (Gk + C3ε Gb ) − C2ε  + Sε (5) ity (vmin ), defined as the lowest air speed that carries 80% of the
k k
amount of moisture out of the dryer. The appropriate designs
are the ones allowing air flow speed above SCG surface to be
kand ε relation equation: higher than this minimum velocity.
From preliminary experiments, drying SCG was mostly
cp t
k=k+ (6) manipulated by the falling rate period governed by diffusion.
Pr Therefore, the highest drying speed was estimated using the
maximum diffusion rate to the surface and thus
k2
t = C (7)
ε
Removalcapacity = Maximumdiffusionrate (8)
2.1.2. Meshing and solving
The finite volume technique basically separated the volume of Applying Fick’s second law, Eq. (8) becomes:
the system into meshes. Preliminarily, a mesh independence
study was carried out over 4 grid resolutions. From coarse to d2 M
Hot air flow rate × (RH,outlet − RH,inlet ) = Di (9)
dense, tetrahedral meshes with the size of 0.05, 0.025, 0.01 dx2
and 0.005 m were trialed and the simulation results obtained
from each mesh size were compared to find the deviation of air
velocity. As reducing the mesh size, the deviation decreased vmin × cross sectional area of inlet × (RH,outlet − RH,inlet )
respectively and nearly unchanged (not greater than 10%) at d2 M
= Di (10)
the mesh size of 0.01 m downward. Thereby, the mesh size of dx2
0.01 m in which 901,782 mesh elements was generated was
applied for further solving. By the finite-volume discretiza-
Using numerical solution with appropriate vertical step
tion, a set of algebraic equations were obtained. Each of the 2
size,y, the term Di ddxM2 can be calculated from Eq. (11) based
equation describes correlation of variables in a cell to those in
on the following assumption and preliminary study:
the adjacent cells. Applying the following boundary conditions
including:
• Temperature and relative humidity of inlet air are 60 ◦ C and
• The velocity of the hot air at inlet was 6 m/s. 10%, respectively.
• The temperature of the hot air at inlet was 60 ◦ C. • Temperature of outlet air decreases 10 ◦ C from the inlet.
• The pressure gauge at the outlet was 0. • The outlet air is saturated.
• The initial dryer temperature was 30 ◦ C. • Drying process is limited by diffusion.
• The operation of system was steady state. • The maximum drying rate equals to the maximum diffusion
rate to the surface.
unknown variables are calculated by the finite-volume • The moisture content at the surface is all evaporated and
method where the numerical algorithm consists of steps as the moisture content of SCG below the surface equals the
follow: initial moisture content, 60%, as it is the maximum driving
force of moisture allowed in this work.
(i) integrate the governing equations of fluid flow over all the  
d2 M  −Mx+3 + 4Mx+2 − 5Mx+1 + 2Mx 
interesting regions, Di 2
= Di 2
× mass (11)
dx y
(ii) convert the integral equations into a system of algebraic
equations,
where Di as a function of temperature, was solved by Eq. (12)
(iii) solve the solution of algebraic equations by iterative
method
Ea 1
ln Di = − + ln D0 (12)
R T
2.2. CFD Prediction of practical load of SCG for a
drying batch Plotting natural log of diffusivities against the reciprocal
of temperature, the activation energy, Ea and the proportion-
Enhancing productivity of dried SCG can simply be carried out ality constant, D0 can be found from the slope and Y-axis
by adding number of trays and/or increasing load on each tray. intersection, respectively. Substituting Ea = 903.07 J/mole and
However, both additional trays and loading more mass in the D0 = 8.68 × 10−8 into Eq. (12), Di = 10−8 (m2 /s) was obtained and
dryer could lead to obstruction and mass transfer resistance was further substituted, along with the appropriate vertical
which adversely affect the drying characteristics. step size, y=0.00107 m (previously determined) into Eq. (11).
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84 79

Therefore, the maximum diffusion rate is solved, as shown in At surface:

Eq. (13)
   
  dT k d2 T d2 T  Mw cv RT
d2 M  −0.6 + 4 (0.6) − 5 (0.6) + 2 (0)  = + − 2 Psat (T) −
Di 2 = 10−8 × 0.9 dt cp  dx2 dy2 cp  2 rT Mw × 1000
dx 0.001072  
w1 w2
= 0.009434 kg/s (13) xyW2 (19)
w1 w2 D

At internals:
Substituting Eq. (13) into Eq. (10), giving


dT k d2 T d2 T
vmin × 5 × 10−4 × (0.083 − 0.0138) = 0.009433 (14) = 2
+ (20)
dt cp  dx dy2

and thus vmin =2.73 m/s

Input parameters used in solving drying equation include
the properties of SCG and that of the inlet hot air as follows:
2.3. Determination of drying duration and dryer
capacity
• Initial moisture content of SCG = 60%
• Initial temperature of SCG =30 ◦ C
Apart from practical load of SCG for a drying batch, another
• Heat capacity of SCG = 1.3 J/g
element that determines capacity of the dryer is daily operat-
• Thermal conductivity of SCG = 0.136 W/mK
ing hours of a coffee shop and thus drying duration is taken
• Density of SCG =0.5787 kg/m3
into account. In other words, moisture content in SCG at
• Relative humidity of inlet hot air = 10%
different elapsed time is to be known. With regard to the com-
• Temperature of inlet hot air =60 ◦ C
plicated sets of related equations, MATLAB was exploited for
such purpose.
and specific conditions are assumed as follows:
Typical drying consists of 3 stages including (i) pre-heating,
(ii) constant rate period and (iii) falling rate period. During the
first stage, the material is heated from the ambient tempera- • The evaporation of moisture content occurs at only the sur-
ture to the wet-bulb temperature. Usually, including this study, face of SCG
this phase occurs rapidly (previously investigated, data not • No evaporation occurs at the tray side
shown) and is neglected from calculation. The second stage • The temperature of SCG near the wall of tray is equal to the
is where the object and the ambient temperatures are equal. air inlet temperature
Water at the surface of the material starts to evaporate, after
which a constant rate of moisture removed from the material SCG bed with 3 cm thickness was chosen as a model system
is found. Thus, the constant rate period is controlled by heat to find the drying duration. In rectangular shape, the thick-
transfer, governed by Eqs. (15), (16). ness is in y-axis and the width and length are in x-axis in
Moisture transfer: which their changes are assumed to be identical, allowing the
model to be simplified into one direction. SCG on trays was
hH (Ti − T) A divided into several small cells, and each one has an area of
mv = (15)

x ×
y. The mathematical model is based on the finite differ-
ence technique with the step sizes both in space (
x,
y) and
Heat transfer coefficient:
time dimensions (
t). The drying duration was accomplished
by reducing these step sizes until the deviation in the results
hH = 0.0204 × G0.8
m (16)
was less than 5% of the previous step size. Preliminarily, tri-
als and errors were conducted to assign a suitable
x and
y
The falling rate period usually occurs when the moisture
that gave acceptable accuracy. As a result,
x and
y at 0.4464
content drops below some certain point, and at this period, the
and 0.107 cm gave the errors of 2.55% and 4.8%, respectively.
drying rate decreases with time and is controlled by diffusion
Evaluation based on the times step of 1 and 2 s proved that
of moisture to the surface of the material, governed by Eq. (17).
simulated results were equivalent and thus 1 s was chosen to
Moisture transfer:
ensure the accuracy of the model solution. These sizes were
At surface:
used for the simulation by MATLAB.
   
dM d2 M d2 M Mw cv RT 2.4. Experimental validation
= Factor D × D + −2 Psat (T) −
dt dx2 dy2 2 rT Mw × 1000
 
W1 W2 Experiments are carried out using a dryer prototype developed
xyW2 /Mass (17)
W1 W2 D following the appropriate design selected from the simulation.
Fresh SCG with moisture content of approximately 60% was
where Factor Ddenotes the compensation parameter for con- collected from a coffee shop and was used to validate the accu-
vection at the surface. racy of the computational prediction. The inlet of the dryer
At internals: was mounted to a regularly working air conditioner compres-

 sor, allowing hot air to flow toward each tray carrying varying
dM d2 M d2 M loads of SCG. To test the accuracy of CFD in predicting practi-
=D 2
+ (18)
dt dx dy2 cal load of SCG per drying batch, using the minimum velocity,
vmin as criteria, moisture contents of the experimental final
Heat transfer: products were to be acquired. With such purpose, 3 g of SCG
80 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84

Fig. 2 – Cross section view of air flow pattern in the dryer with varying inlet-outlet position.

Fig. 3 – Surface velocity with removing dead zone.

from inlet side, middle and outlet side of each tray were sam-
pled at the drying time of 600 min and their moisture content
were examined by a moisture analyzer (Ohaus MB25, USA).
Air velocity were monitored occasionally as drying proceeded
using a thermal anenometer (Testo 425, Germany). Relative
humidity and air temperature were recorded at the inlet and
outlet position using temperature and humidity data loggers
(Tenmars TM-305U, Taiwan). In validation of drying duration,
trays were mounted with a scale and thus weight losses at
each elapse time were recorded and implied as the amount of
the moisture removed.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Design of inlet and outlet position for tray dryer
High surface velocity is an important criterion in the determi-
nation of a good dryer design. The adequate air speed would
carry the evaporated moisture from the surface out of the
dryer. Moreover, hot air also carried with it the energy used
to evaporate moisture at the SCG surface. Fig. 2 shows the air
flow pattern induced from the different dryer inlet-outlet posi-
tions where velocity profile was illustrated in different colors
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84 81

of red (high) to blue (low), respectively. Fig. 2(a) demonstrates

the case where the hot air flowed from the bottom of the cham-
ber (inlet) to the top (outlet). In this trial, the air was likely to
disperse uniformly underneath the tray rather than at the tray
top where the drying occurred. This is therefore considered
not appropriate for the drying as effective air flow at the top
surface is required for the better moisture removal.
Simulation of the case where air inlet and outlet were at
the middle of the side of the chamber is illustrated by Fig. 2(b).
Here, although air dispersed fluently on the side of the tray, the
air velocity at the tray top was relatively low as the flow was
obstructed by the structure of the dryer. When the air flowed
into contact with the tray wall, the stream separated resulting
in a decrease in velocity above SCG surface. Accordingly, this
inlet-outlet position was also not desirable.
The most optimal structure was obtained when the hot air
was supplied from the top of the chamber, where the hot air Fig. 4 – 3D drawing of the model dryer.
distributed more uniformly than those from other configu-
rations. Fig. 2 (c) shows that the green areas above the tray tested for its performance in the up-coming experiments. As
surface, which indicates velocity in the range of 3.5–4 m/s, shown in Fig. 4, the model dryer consisted of an air collec-
were larger than those in Fig. 2(a) and (b). Therefore the design tor, assembling hot air from the air compressor and adapted
in Fig. 2(c) was selected as the base geometry for further to the tray dryer. Flowing toward the inlet at the top, the air
adjustment. was directed to the dryer chamber in which the samples were
At this point where the inlet-outlet position was located, arranged and then left the dryer at the bottom outlet.
there occurred the dead zone in which air was inaccessible
around the corners of the chamber. To eliminate the dead
3.2. Determination of practical number of trays
zone, the flow pattern was re-simulated and the result in Fig. 3
illustrates that the removal of the unnecessary zone clearly
CFD was applied to simulate the air velocity in the chamber
enhanced the surface velocity. Averaged out of 9 positions
and the results are shown in Fig. 5. It could be seen from the fig-
throughout the surface, the air velocity increased by11.32%
ure that varying the number of trays and the thickness of SCG
(from 2.94 (±1.23) to 3.28 (±1.22) m/s). This is because, in the
layer allowed changes in velocity distribution in each chamber.
original design with sharp corners, the direction of the flow
For 1 cm of SCG layer, as the number of trays increased
changed quickly, resulting in the decrease in the flow rate
to four, the average surface velocities from three of them fell
caused by friction energy loss. Additionally, removing dead
below the minimum velocity of 2.73 m/s, due primarily to the
zone also reduced the requirement of the materials used to
reducing gap space between trays which led to an un-smooth
build the dryer, and in this work, the modified configuration
air flow. Thus, the maximum number of trays for 1 cm SCG
required 20% less material than the original design. The dryer
layer was 3 as shown in Fig. 5(a). Similarly, Fig. 5(b) shows that
with the removed dead zone was then constructed, and was
three trays was the maximum number of trays for the case

Fig. 5 – Simulated average air velocity above SCG surface with varying number of tray from 1 to 4 when allowing the
thickness of SCG layer of 5 cm (a), 2 cm (b), 3 cm (c) and 4 cm (d).
82 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84
Fig. 6 – Experimental moisture content of SCG on tray at each position when loaded with 900 g of SCG (3 cm thick).
Fig. 7 – Drying duration of SCG with different thicknesses.
where 2 cm SCG layer was tested. At 3 cm thickness of SCG
layer, the average air velocity on the second of three trays was
only 2.5 m/s, meaning that for a good drying, the dryer with
the thickness of SCG layer of 3 cm allowed only 2 trays in the
chamber, as shown in Fig. 5(c). Fig. 4(d) illustrates that, for
4 cm of SCG thickness, the maximum number of trays for the
dryer was only two. Consequently, the maximum number of
trays loading SCG with the thickness of 1 and 2 cm were three,
while those when loading 3 and 4 cm SCG were two.
Fig. 6 shows experimental results of SCG dried by the dryer
prototype when loaded with 900 g of SCG (3 cm thick). It can
be seen from the figure that the moisture contents from all
positions, i.e. inlet side, middle and outlet side, of all trays from
the dryer containing 1 and 2 trays were lower than 20%. On the
other hand, as the surface velocity fell below the minimum as
in the dryer with 3 trays mounted, the moisture content at
the middle of the second tray was eventually still higher than
20%. This indicates that the experimental results conformed
exceptionally well with the previous computational one.
3.3. Determination of drying duration
As shown in Fig. 7, it is obvious that the drying curve for
drying SCG with 1 cm thickness was differentiated into two
periods. At the beginning where there still was moisture in
exposure to the hot air at the SCG surface, the drying was
mainly governed by convection and thus the constant period
was observed. Until the SCG surface was mostly dried as the
moisture content decreased to 20%, there occurred a falling
period in which the moisture was gradually removed. This
is particularly due to the dominant diffusion of water under-
neath the layer which takes longer time before it reached the
surface for quick evaporation.
As thickening the SCG layer, the constant periods became
relatively shorter and almost the entire process of the dry-
ing fell into the falling rate period. This is because, increasing
thickness meant a longer distance from center to the sur-
face, resulting in a longer duration for moisture to travel into
contact with hot air (Gómez-de la Cruz et al., 2015). As a con-
sequence, time needed for removing moisture in SCG to 20%
were 115, 343, 656 and 1,060 min, for the SCG thickness of 1,
2, 3 and 4 cm, respectively. In other words, each centimeter
of the increase in SCG bed thickness caused the extension of
drying duration by 3 times, approximately.
With the models attained computationally, the average
moisture content of SCG at each time interval could be pre-
dicted. At the SCG layer of 4 cm, the simulation conforms well
to the experimental results at the accuracy of 97.2%, indicat-
ing that the developed model could precisely simulate the
reduction of moisture content over elapsed drying time.
With this model, moisture content at each position of the
tray was also simulated. Fig. 8 shows moisture content of the
3-cm-SCG after 656 min of drying. The range of moisture con-
tent was 0 to 37.14% as explained by color, blue to red. The
moisture content at the center of the tray was higher than
that at the side of the tray as the major heat source was at
the tray boundary. The energy was therefore transferred from
tray wall to the center of the tray, causing higher tempera-
ture of SCG at the side than that at the center. This could be
implication of higher diffusion coefficient at the side of the
tray than that at the center. In other words, the moisture at
the side was transferred to the surface for evaporation faster
than that at the center. Moreover, as moisture gradually trans-
ferred upward by diffusion before it was diminished by rapid
evaporation at the surface, there occurred the lower moisture
content at the surface than that down below.
3.4. Consideration of appropriate dryer for coffee shops
Choosing an appropriate tray dryer for coffee shops, the cri-
teria is set based on the drying capacity and drying duration.
Accordingly, some assumptions are assigned as follows:
• Coffee shops are operated during day time only and thus it is
necessary that the drying is to be completed within 720 min
(12 h) where the air condition is on.
• The thickness of SCG bed and the number of trays in the
dryers are those allowing the dryer to reduce the moisture
content to below 20% within 720 min. Chosen from the pre-
 Chemical Engineering Research and Design 1 5 3 ( 2 0 2 0 ) 75–84 83

Fig. 8 – Moisture content of SCG at each position on tray with 3 cm bed thickness.

Table 1 – Capacity of dryer with various bed thicknesses.

Case Thickness of Number of Mass of SCG Time needed to Number of batches could Dryer capacity (g)
SCG layer (cm) mounted trays loaded on each complete a be completed in working
tray (g) batch (min) hours (720 min) per batch per day

1 1 3 300 115 6 900 5400

2 2 3 600 343 2 1800 3600
3 3 2 900 656 1 1,800 1800
4 4 2 1,200 1060 n/a n/a n/a

vious study, those thicknesses and numbers of trays that
pass the criteria are described in Table 1
It could be seen from the table that for 1–4 cm of tray thick-
ness, 115, 343, 656 and 1060 min are needed to complete a
batch of drying. Within the daily operation hours of the coffee
shop as assigned in the assumption, 6, 2 and 1 batches could
be operated by dryers containing SCG with 1, 2 and 3 cm thick,
respectively. It is noted that the dryer with 4-cm SCG thickness
takes longer than the time constraint (720 min) and was thus
excluded from further consideration. The amount of SCG for
each case that could be dried within daily hours of coffee shop
operation are summarized in Table 1. It could be seen from
the table that Case 1 provided the highest amount of 5400 g
of dry SCG and was thus considered the most appropriate
configuration in this study.
Lowering 60% moisture content in 900 g of SCG to 20% in
the final product, the amount of energy required to remove
468 g of water is considered. This includes: (1) 14.04 kJ to rise
temperature of SCG from 30 ◦ C to 60 ◦ C, (2) 67.83 kJ to increase
water temperature from 30 ◦ C to 60 ◦ C, and (3) 1103.4 kJ for the
evaporation of water at 60 ◦ C. Entirely, the design of dryer in
this study could save up cost for 1185.27 kJ/batch or 2.74 kJ/g of
dry product using a free-of-charge heat source from air com-
pressor.
4. Conclusions
Valorizing waste heat from compressor hot air, a new tray
dryer for spent coffee ground (SCG) was innovated with the
target to remove moisture content of SCG to less than 20%.
Inlet-outlet position, thickness of SCG layer and number of
trays mounted in the dryer were examined by simulation and
validated by experiments. From this study, it can be concluded
that:
• The suitable locations of inlet and outlet were top and bot-
tom, respectively.
• The Statistical Rate Theory (SRT) and Fick’s second law could
be used to model evaporation at surface and diffusion of
moisture in SCG with high accuracy.
• The most appropriate dryer for a coffee shop could dry
5400 g of SCG /day when it was mounted with 3 trays, each
carrying 300 g of SCG.
The information from the simulation could be employed
to design appropriate dryer for any particular coffee shops.
In addition, the drying of SCG does not only reduce a large
amount of waste being generated (more than 50,000 tons/y). It
also does allow the potential usages of SCG in various applica-
tions. And from research viewpoints, the knowledge from this
study could be extended to drying other agricultural products
of similar nature.
Acknowledgement
This work was financially supported by Vidyasirimedhi Insti-
tute of Science and Technology (VISTEC).
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