A novel initial temperature-based methodology to predict the optimal thickness in microwave thin layer drying process

作者：Jiang, Jun; Tan, Hongsing; Pan, Bochen; Dang, Leping^*; Wang, Zhanzhong^*; Wei, Hongyuan

来源：Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers, 2018, 84: 67-75.

DOI：10.1016/j.jtice.2018.01.020

• Thin layer
• Microwave drying
• Pre-heating stage
• Temperature simulation
• Optimal thickness prediction
• Influential factors

Compared with traditional hot air drying method, the existence of optimal material layer thickness is a significant phenomenon in microwave thin layer drying process. In the current work, a new initial temperature-based methodology is proposed to predict the optimal thickness and to evaluate the effect of influential factors on optimal thickness. The evaluated optimal material layer thickness by the proposed methodology is consistent with experimentally measured value, and hence confirms that the optimal layer thickness can be predicted exactly through the average temperature of bulk material at the initial 1st min during pre-heating stage. With the help of the proposed methodology, it is discovered that attenuation factor, beta, surface convective heat transfer coefficient, h, and environmental air temperature, T-e are the main factors that affect the optimal thickness. And a larger beta or T-e tends to result in a smaller optimal thickness, while the situation for h is just the opposite. These results can play a crucial role in designing apt continuous microwave tunnel drying system or aid in guiding their operations.

• 出版日期2018-3
• 单位天津大学