ABSTRACT
Drying is one of the most energy-intensive unit operations in industrial processing. In case of evaporative drying, a large part of the required energy is used in the form of thermal heat (i.e., heat generated directly by combustion of fuel or indirectly from steam or using hot oil through a heat exchanger) in the drying process. The drying system would include infeed material handling and loading components, dryer unit, out-feed handling and unloading components, and heat plant and accessories. Drying is a very diverse unit operation in chemical engineering. Some distinguishing features of the drying unit operation are the variation in the material size and shape, variety of drying media used, and the wide range of drying times. This is why there are over 400 different types of dryers reported in the literature and over 100 distinct types of dryers commonly available (Mujumdar, 2006).
