Predicting the energy consumption of continuous well-mixed fluidized bed dryers from drying kinetic data

Previous work has shown that it is possible to predict the size of a continuous well-mixed fluidized bed dryer from batch drying curve measurements. This approach has been extended in the present study to include energy consumption calculations. A computer code was written to simulate the performance of the dryer and to determine its specific energy consumption E-S. Starting in this case with an isothermal bed batch drying curve, the program first calculates the mean solids residence time required under specified operating conditions. Mass and energy balances are then used to calculate the heat duty and E-S. The bed temperature was found to have a significant effect on specific energy consumption in all cases. However, the influences of air flowrate and humidity, and of solids loading, were shown to depend on the solids drying characteristics.