Thermal analysis in fluidized bed drying of moist particles

This paper deals with thermal modeling of the fluidized bed drying of wet particles to study heat and mass transfer aspects and drying thermal efficiencies. The model is then validated with the literature experimental data obtained for corn. A parametric investigation is undertaken to study the effects of the inlet air temperature, the air velocity and the initial moisture content of the material (i.e. corn) on the process thermal efficiency. The results show that the thermal efficiencies of the fluidized bed drying decrease sharply with decreasing moisture content of corn and hence increasing drying time, and apparently become the lowest at the end of the drying process. This clearly indicates that the moisture transfer from the material depends strongly on the air temperature, air velocity and the moisture content of material. A good agreement is obtained between the model predictions and the available experimental results.