Spouted bed drying of cork stoppers

The spouted bed is commonly used to dry granular particles as it displays some special characteristics which render it capable of performing cyclic operations, with particles that are very difficult to fluidize under a different type of bed. Information on the characteristic drying rates of cork stoppers is still very limited in the technical and scientific literature, and until now no published data was found on the spouted bed drying of cork stoppers. The characterization of the drying performance of Port wine cork stoppers was carried out in a laboratory scale spouted bed. Characteristic drying curves were determined with 29 mm × 21 mm cork stoppers under several operating conditions. Values for the effective diffusivity were obtained in the range of 1.36 × 10−9 to 4.44 × 10−9 m2/s, with the temperature dependence represented by an Arrhenius-type relationship. The activation energy obtained was 28.72 kJ/mol.