Abstract
This work presents the mathematical modeling of the conveyor-belt dryer with tangential flow operating in co-current, which has the advantage of improving the preservation of the organoleptic and nutritional qualities of the dried food. On the one hand, it is a more cumbersome dryer than the perforated cross flow belt dryer but, on the other hand, it has a low air temperature in the final section where the product has a low moisture content and, therefore, it is more heat sensitive. The results of the mathematical modeling allowed a series of guidelines to be developed for a rational design of the conveyor-belt dryer with tangential flow for the specific case of the moisture content of the final product XF lower than the critical one XC (XF < XC). In fact, this work follows a precedent in which a mathematical model was developed through the differentiation of the drying rate equation along the dryer belt with the hypothesis that the final moisture content XF of the product was higher than the critical one XC. The relationships between the extensive quantities (air flow rate and product flow rate), the intensive quantities (temperatures, moisture content and enthalpies) and the dimensional ones (length and width of the belt) were then obtained. Finally, based on these relationships, the rules for an optimized design for XF < XC were obtained.
Highlights
This work presents the mathematical modeling of the conveyor-belt dryer with tangential flow operating in co-current, which has the advantage of improving the preservation of the organoleptic and nutritional qualities of the dried food
This work follows a precedent in which a mathematical model was developed through the differentiation of the drying rate equation along the dryer belt with the hypothesis that the final moisture content XF of the product was higher than the critical one XC
In previous papers [1,2], the conveyor-belt dryer with tangential flow operating in co-current had been indicated as the dryer that shows the advantage of possible lower thermal damage, especially for heat-sensitive food
Summary
In previous papers [1,2], the conveyor-belt dryer with tangential flow operating in co-current had been indicated as the dryer that shows the advantage of possible lower thermal damage, especially for heat-sensitive food. Having the hot air temperature approximately constant throughout the length of the dryer when the air enters the product, this dryer is more compact and easier to design and, given its high diffusion, it has been the subject of theoretical and experimental studies to give indications for its design [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. The scientific literature is rich in mathematical models of heat and mass exchanges developed with numerical or empirical solutions to describe the drying phenomenon when the temperature of the air entering or touching the product remains constant. Among the food products that can be mentioned are: apple [12,13,14,15,16,17], apricot [18], banana [19,20,21,22,23], carrot [24], cassava [25], coconut [26], coroba [27], cumbeba [28], fisher [29], ginger [30], jujuba [31], kiwi [32], mandarin [33], mango [34,35,36,37], mussel [38], quince [39], papaya [40], pear [41], potato [42], rice [43], sultanas [44], taraxacum [45], tomato [46,47], turnip [48], generic fruits [49,50,51,52,53,54] and generic foods [55,56,57,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69,70,71]
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