Characteristic Drying Curve of Oil Palm Fibers

Abstract

The drying of crushed oil palm fronds was studied in a fluidized bed dryer assisted with mechanical agitation at different inlet air temperature, superficial air velocity, bed loading and agitation speed. The drying kinetics of the fibers under various drying conditions could be described by a single characteristic drying curve. A combined exponential and power law model is proposed to represent the characteristic drying curve which described both the increasing rate and the falling rate periods. The proposed model is also tested for drying kinetics of oil palm empty fruit bunch from previous researcher. It was found that the characteristic curve for both oil palm fronds and empty fruit bunch fibers has similar shape and that the proposed model is acceptable for describing the complete drying characteristics of the fibers.