Drying of Porous Materials, 2007

Thermal drying has been recognized as an important unit operation as it is ener- intensive and has a decisive effect on the quality of most products that are dried commercially. Escalating energy costs, demand for eco-friendly and sustainable te- nologies as well as the rising consumer demand for higher quality products, have given fresh incentives to industry and academia to devote great effort to drying R&D. Fortunately, this area does not demand a massive perfusion of R&D funds to come up with valuable insights and innovations, with only a few exceptions. Indeed, there is already a sustainable level of R&D support?both in terms of human and ?nancial resources?around the world. Emerging economies of the world, such as China, B- zil, India, etc, have picked up the slack caused by the fully developed economies of the west moving towards nanotechnologies. Overall, the global R&D effort has been rising despite precipitous drops in North America and Europe. With 12?25% of the national industrial energy consumption attributable to industrial drying in developed countries, it is only a matter of time before high energy costs will stimulate further R&D in drying.

Preface.- An overview of innovation in industrial drying: current status and R&D needs.- Modern methods of drying nanomaterials.- Internal heating effect and enhancement of drying of ceramics by microwave heating with dynamic control.- The vapour-liquid interface and stresses in dried bodies.- Multiscale aspects of heat and mass transfer during drying.- Theoretical models of vegetable drying by convection.- Analysis of the mechanism of counter-current spray drying.- Modern modelling methods in drying.- Non-linear heat and mass transfer during convective drying of kaolin cylinder under non-steady conditions.- Effects of the method of identification of the diffusion coefficient on accuracy of modeling bound water transfer in wood.- Stresses in dried wood. Modelling and experimental identification.- Kinetics of atmospheric freeze-drying of apple.- Microwave drying of various shape particles suspended in an air stream.- Periodic fluctuations of flow and porosity in spouted beds.- Modeling of vacuum desorption of multicomponent moisture in freeze drying.- Optimization of fine solid drying in bubble fluidized bed.