Analysis of Drying Efficiency for Circulating and Falling Movements on Indirected Drying Process of Food Waste

Abstract

Indirected heating dryer is used as one of the food waste treatment technologies for the production of the drier material supplied to the recycling facilities or end user. This study investigated the effect on drying efficiency for the operation of rotating screw with the circulating and falling movements on indirected drying process of food waste. The screw operating condition showed higher drying efficiency despite of the shorter drying time compared to the screw non-operating condition. The moisture content decreased to 14.4% from the initial moisture content of 77.1% after drying 5 hours in the screw operating condition. On the other hand, in the screw non-operating condition, the moisture content decreased slightly to 35.6% after drying 16 hours. During the drying process, variations of the water evaporation rate and particle size showed different tendencies depending on the moisture content regions. In the higher moisture content region above the glue zone(moisture content of about 50%-60%), the particle size increased and the water evaporation rate reached the highest peak. In the range of glue zone, the particle size maximized while the water evaporation rate decreased sharply. In the lower moisture content region below the glue zone, the water evaporation rate and particle size both decreased at the same time. The particle size distribution was widely ranged from 25.0mm to 0.25mm in the screw operating condition while it was narrowly distributed in the screw non-operating condition from 25.0mm to 3.56mm, especially highly concentrated to 25.0mm. It was regarded that the hygroscopic, capillary and gravitational water evaporated more easily from the intra-particle during the circulating and falling movement caused by the rotating of the screw and the difference of the cohesional force of water within intra-particle depending on the moisture content regions. Comparing the effect of the circulating and falling movement on drying efficiency, the water evaporation rates per time and per weight of dry solid in the screw operating condition were higher about 364% and 356%, respectively, than those of the screw non-operating condition.