Analysis of energy consumption in microwave and convective drying process of multi-layered porous material inside a rectangular wave guide

This work applies the first law of thermodynamics to estimate the ratio of energy utilization in microwave drying process using a rectangular waveguide. Two porous packed bed systems are considered such as attaching fine bed on coarse bed (F-C) and attaching coarse bed on fine bed (C-F). The effects of layered configuration and layered thickness on drying rate, power absorbed efficiency, specific energy consumption (SEC), and energy efficiency are studied in detail. The results show that the variations of all parameters have strongly affected on microwave penetration depth and power absorbed within the packed bed. Furthermore, F-C bed with equal layer thickness corresponds to great energy efficiency. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.