Modern Drying Technology, Volume 4

Energy Savings

Evangelos Tsotsas, Arun S. Mujumdar, Evangelos Tsotsas, Arun S. Mujumdar

• Publisher: Wiley-VCH
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9783527315598
• eBook ISBN: 9783527644018
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Tecnologia e ingegneria
• Subtopic: Ingegneria chimica e biochimica

This five-volume series provides a comprehensive overview of all important aspects of modern drying technology, concentrating on the transfer of cutting-edge research results to industrial use.

Volume 4 deals with the reduction of energy demand in various drying processes and areas, highlighting the following topics: Energy analysis of dryers, efficient solid-liquid separation techniques, osmotic dehydration, heat pump assisted drying, zeolite usage, solar drying, drying and heat treatment for solid wood and other biomass sources, and sludge thermal processing.

Chapter 1

Fundamentals of Energy Analysis of Dryers

Ian C. Kemp

1.1 Introduction

Drying is a highly energy-intensive process, accounting for 10–20% of total industrial energy use in most developed countries. The main reason for this is the need to supply the latent heat of evaporation to remove the water or other solvent. There are thus clear incentives to reduce energy use in drying: to conserve finite resources of fossil fuels, to reduce carbon footprint and combat climate change, and to improve process economics, but it is a challenging task facing real thermodynamic barriers.

Effective analysis of current energy use is a vital first step in identifying opportunities for savings. An initial lower bound of dryer energy needs is provided by calculating the evaporation load for the amount of water to be removed (Section 1.3). This shows how much energy is inherently required and, by comparing with current measured energy usage, what opportunities exist to reduce energy consumption. These fall into three main categories;

1. Reduce the evaporation load – for example, by upstream dewatering to reduce initial moisture content, or avoiding overdrying.

2. Increase the dryer efficiency – for example, by improving insulation and reducing heat losses, installing heat recovery or changing operating parameters.

3. Improve the energy supply (utility) system – for example, by increasing boiler efficiency, or using combined heat and power (CHP), heat pumps, waste incineration, or other alternative low-cost fuels.

Frequently, the evaporation load will be less than 50% of the actual process energy consumption in terms of fuel supplied. The numerous causes for this difference include:

• Additional energy required to break bonds and release bound moisture
• Heat losses in the exhaust (particularly for convective dryers) or through the dryer body
• Heating solids and vapor to their discharge temperature
• Steam generation and distribution losses and condensate losses
• Losses in non-routine operation, for example, startup, shutdown or low load periods
• Ancillary steam use, for example, trace heating, steam ejectors and turbine drives

In addition, there will be power consumption for fans, vacuum pumps, chillers, mechanical drives and other general uses. The dryer's energy use must also be seen in the context of the complete process and, indeed, of the site as a whole.

One key tool is pinch analysis (Section 1.4.2), which shows the temperatures at which the dryer heat load is required and where heat can be recovered from the exhaust vapor, and places this in the context of the overall production process. This shows the feasibility of heat recovery, CHP, heat pumps and process changes, and helps to generate realistic targets for how much energy the process should be using. Practical methods to help achieve these targets are reviewed in Section 1.5, and the whole analysis methodology is shown in action in the case study in Section 1.6.

An engineer – maybe a reformed gambler – once restated the three laws of thermodynamics (conservation of energy, increasing entropy and increasing difficulty of approaching absolute zero) as follows:

1. You can't win – you can only break even.

2. You can't break even – you can only lose.

3. You can't get out of the game.

Energy consumption, like taxes, is an unavoidable fact of life. Nevertheless, it is sensible, and feasible, to use our ingenuity to reduce it as far as possible.

1.2 Energy in Industrial Drying

Industrial dryers are major energy users. A survey by Wilmshurst (1988) (reported by Bahu, 1991) estimated that drying processes accounted for at least 10% of industrial energy demand in the UK and Europe – not just 10% of process engineering, but of all industrial consumption. Since then, if anything, the figure has increased; a similar survey by Kemp (1996) for the UK Government's Department of Energy evaluated the figure at 12–15% of total industry energy use. Similar figures are thought to apply for most developed countries.

Why should this be, in an era of increasing focus on energy efficiency and work by manufacturers to improve their equipment? The answer is that drying processes have an unavoidable constraint – they must supply enough heat or energy to provide the latent heat of evaporation for all the vapor which is removed – over 2000 kJ kg⁻¹ for the most common solvent, water. All industries have been working to reduce their energy consumption, but many have been able to make energy savings more easily than drying, which is limited by its thermodynamic barrier. Furthermore, dryers tend to have inherently low thermal efficiency (often below 50% for convective dryers) and many new products requiring drying have appeared on the market (e.g., special foods, pharmaceuticals, videotapes).

In the 1970s and 1980s, energy prices were high, and this provided the major cost incentive for installing energy-saving projects – an incentive that was markedly reduced when oil prices fell to much lower levels in the following years. Now, in the twenty-first century, energy is recognized to be only part of the bigger picture of sustainability. Major associated benefits of energy reduction include reducing CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, and pollutants and acid gases including SO_x and NO_x. With oil prices volatile again, and the principles of dryer energy reduction better understood than in the past, it is an excellent time to revisit the challenge of making drying systems more energy efficient. This should involve the entire process, including the energy supply systems, rather than treating the dryer in isolation.

An economic point which is often overlooked is that energy is a direct cost, so that a saving of £1000 (GBP) goes directly onto the bottom line and appears as £1000 extra profit. In contrast, a £1000 increase in sales is diluted by a corresponding increase in production costs, including raw materials, transport and, of course, energy itself. Nevertheless, the tight constraints on budgeting and economic return on energy-saving schemes make it essential that a clear analysis of the principles is made before embarking on a project.

1.3 Fundamentals of Dryer Energy Usage

1.3.1 Evaporation Load

We will use the common definition of a drying process as being one where liquid is removed from a solid specifically by evaporation. This excludes mechanical dewatering processes such as filtration and centrifugation. Hence, to achieve drying, the latent heat of evaporation must be supplied to turn each kilogram of moisture into vapor. Thus the absolute minimum amount of heat or other energy, E_v,min, (J), which must be supplied for a drying process is:

(1.1)

It is often more convenient to use the corresponding heat supply rate, Q_v,min, (J s⁻¹ or W), which is given by:

(1.2)

For a continuous process it is

(1.3)

and for a batch process (at any instant)

(1.4)

Latent heat varies with temperature. For the most common solvent, water, the latent heat of evaporation is 2501 kJ kg⁻¹ at 0 °C and 2256 kJ kg⁻¹ at 100 °C. At ambient temperatures, around 20 °C, a figure of 2400 kJ kg⁻¹ is a good working approximation. So, for a drying process which requires the evaporation of 1 kg s⁻¹ of water from the solid, an absolute minimum of 2400 kJ s⁻¹ (2400 kW) must be supplied to the process in some way. Note, however, that if the liquid enters with the solid at one temperature, and emerges as a vapor at a higher temperature, additional sensible heat will be needed to achieve this, in addition to the latent heat at a fixed temperature.

1.3.2 Dryer Energy Supply

The evaporation load is the minimum energy demand for drying, but this energy has to be transferred to the solids in a practical way; for example, from hot air (convective drying), a hot wall or surface (contact or conduction drying), or by absorbing electromagnetic radiation (infrared, radiofrequency or microwave drying). The process of supplying heat typically consumes significantly more energy than the latent heat of evaporation.

For a continuous convective (hot air) dryer, the heater duty for the inlet air heat exchanger (excluding heater losses) is given by:

(1.5)

Here T_g,in is the inlet temperature to the dryer and T_g,a is the temperature at which the air is su...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Modern Drying Technology
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Series Preface
• Preface of Volume 4
• List of Contributors
• Recommended Notation
• EFCE Working Party on Drying; Address List
• Chapter 1: Fundamentals of Energy Analysis of Dryers
• Chapter 2: Mechanical Solid–Liquid Separation Processes and Techniques
• Chapter 3: Energy Considerations in Osmotic Dehydration
• Chapter 4: Heat Pump Assisted Drying Technology – Overview with Focus on Energy, Environment and Product Quality
• Chapter 5: Zeolites for Reducing Drying Energy Usage
• Chapter 6: Solar Drying
• Chapter 7: Energy Issues of Drying and Heat Treatment for Solid Wood and Other Biomass Sources
• Chapter 8: Efficient Sludge Thermal Processing: From Drying to Thermal Valorization
• Index