Comparative Study of Drying using Hot Air and Hot Air-Infrared Radiation

Abstract

The research aims to investigate and compare the drying kinetics and energy consumption oftwo drying configurations which are only hot air and combined hot air-infrared radiation. Parametersvaried in this study are drying air temperature, air velocity, and input power of an infrared heater. Thedistance between an infrared source and the product is constant. The product size is also keptconstant. To compare the drying performance, measured parameters are drying time, drying rate, andspecific energy consumption. From experiments, the combined hot air-infrared radiation providesshorter drying time, higher drying rate, and lower specific energy consumption than those of the onlyhot air system. Moreover, in the hot air-infrared system, it is commended that the hot air velocityshould be at least 0.3 m/s in order to control the product quality being in an acceptable range.