Thermal drying technologies - Cost-effective innovation aided by mathematical modeling approach

In view of the escalating cost of energy, potential legislations curtailing carbon emissions, and the need for drying diverse new products, it is expected that drying RD will continue to thrive in the coming decades even after a continuous upswing over the past 3 decades. It is becoming increasingly important that new green dryers with smaller carbon footprints will be demanded, not simply preferred, over the next decade of unprecedented industrial expansion of the developing economies of the world. To develop new drying technologies one needs to seek a cost-effective and speedier way of arriving at new designs. This article proposes that mathematical modeling is one such approach to intensify innovation. In spite of the limitations of exiting drying theories it is proposed that one can consider innovative conceptual designs of dryers through the modeling approach. However, modeling cannot supplant experimental verification in view of our lack of detailed knowledge of the fundamental drying principles. Some examples of model-based innovation are given along with brief tabulated summaries of various modeling approaches and a list of recent literature reports on modeling dryers that have appeared in Drying Technology.