The document describes the theory and process of tray drying. Tray drying involves evenly spreading wet solids over trays and passing hot air over the trays to evaporate the liquid. It is a convectional drying method used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Factors like air temperature, flow rate, and drying time affect the drying rate. The experiment involves drying macaroni on trays in a tray dryer unit while measuring temperature, humidity, and air flow over 90 minutes.
The document describes the theory and process of tray drying. Tray drying involves evenly spreading wet solids over trays and passing hot air over the trays to evaporate the liquid. It is a convectional drying method used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Factors like air temperature, flow rate, and drying time affect the drying rate. The experiment involves drying macaroni on trays in a tray dryer unit while measuring temperature, humidity, and air flow over 90 minutes.
The document describes the theory and process of tray drying. Tray drying involves evenly spreading wet solids over trays and passing hot air over the trays to evaporate the liquid. It is a convectional drying method used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Factors like air temperature, flow rate, and drying time affect the drying rate. The experiment involves drying macaroni on trays in a tray dryer unit while measuring temperature, humidity, and air flow over 90 minutes.
The document describes the theory and process of tray drying. Tray drying involves evenly spreading wet solids over trays and passing hot air over the trays to evaporate the liquid. It is a convectional drying method used in pharmaceutical manufacturing. Factors like air temperature, flow rate, and drying time affect the drying rate. The experiment involves drying macaroni on trays in a tray dryer unit while measuring temperature, humidity, and air flow over 90 minutes.
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
Download as docx, pdf, or txt
You are on page 1/ 5
LAB 3: TRAY DRYER
4.0 THEORY
The working principle of tray dryer is hot air is passed over the surface of wet solids that is evenly sprayed over the trays arranged orderly. Basically, drying process occurred is based on hot air circulation through the chamber having the materials inside it. A tray dryer is a convectional drying equipment. Tray dryer is widely used for material drying in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The advantages of using tray dryer are it is more efficient in fuel consumption, easy to use, also it provides tendency to over-dry the lower trays. However, its greatest drawback is uneven drying due to poor airflow distribution in the drying chamber. The drying process is long as it usually takes about to 12 to 48 hours.
Technically, drying is a mass transfer process in which it removes water or other solvent by evaporation from a solid, semi-solid, or liquid to form a dry solid. Drying occurs as a result of vaporization of liquid by supplying heat to the wet materials. In terms of heat transfer, drying is categorized into direct (convection), indirect or contact (conduction), radiant (radiation) and dielectric or microwave (radio frequency) drying.
Drying is a process that involves both heat transfer and mass transfer. Heat is supplied by passing the hot air to the wet solids to evaporate the liquid contains in it while mass is transferred as a vapor into the surrounding gas. The drying rate can be determined by the set of factors that affect heat and mass transfer. It is also related to the observation of moisture content. Generally, there are two drying zones known as, the constant-rate period and the falling-rate period. These two zones are cut by a break point called the critical moisture content.
There are two graphs representing the drying rates which are graph of moisture content versus drying rate and moisture content versus time. In figure 1 below, in the graph of moisture content versus time, constant-rate period is where moisture is considered to evaporate from a saturated surface at a rate governed by diffusion from the surface through the stationary air film that is in contact with it. This period will determine the temperature of the saturated surface depending on the air temperature, humidity, and speed of moisture to the surface. Liquid must be transported to the surface at a rate that is sufficient to maintain saturation at the period. At the end of constant-rate period, a break in drying curve is called the critical moisture content point, and a linear fall in the drying rate occurs with further drying. Meanwhile, the first falling-rate period is when moisture reaches the surface at a decreasing rate and the mechanism that controls its transfer will influence the rate of drying. Next, the second falling- rate period occurs when the surface is no longer saturated, it will tend to rise above the wet- bulb temperature and it is controlled by diffusion of vapor.
FIGURE 1
Liquid may move by diffusion under the concentration gradient created by the depletion of water at the surface. The gradient is may be due to the results of evaporation, or osmotic effects, capillary forces, or the cycle of vaporization and condensation. The amount of air (gas) stream to absorb the moisture in the wet solids will determine the drying rate and establish the duration of drying cycle. In conducting this experiment, two elements are crucial which are inlet air temperature and air flowrate. Theoretically, the higher the temperature of the drying air, the greater its vapor holding capacity. 5.0 APPARATUS
5.1 MATERIAL:
Macaroni
Figure 2) Macaroni evenly spread on trays
5.2 APPARATUS:
Tray Dryer Training Unit CE-130
Anemometer Figure 3) Tray Dryer Training Unit CE-130
Figure 4) Anemometer 6.0 METHODOLOGY
6.1 Start-up procedures:
1. The main switch of the tray dryer machine is opened.
2. Then, the fan power is opened, and the toggle turned to the lowest speed. 3. Lastly, the heater is opened and the toggle turned to scale 7.
6.2 Procedures:
1. The drying trays is washed to remove any impurities/filthiness.
2. The mass of empty dying trays is measured by inserting them into the support frame. The mass is recorded. 3. The macaroni is evenly spread and arranged over the trays. 4. The tray filled with macaroni is then weighted by inserting the tray into the supporting frame. The mass is recorded. 5. The initial temperature and humidity are recorded. Then, the initial air flow inside the tray dryers is measured by using anemometer and the reading is recorded. 6. Then, the data is recorded for every 10 minutes in 90 minutes time of the drying process. 7. After 90 minutes, all the trays are taken out to be clean.
6.3 Shut-down procedure:
1. The heater toggle is turned to scale 0. Then, the heater and fan switch are turned off. 2. The main switch of the tray dryer machine is turned off.
