Abstract
It is highly essential to create a high performance drying technology from the viewpoint of energy conservation. Recently the drying process using superheated steam has received a great attention for improving the energy efficiency of the conventional air drying processes. Many other advantages of this superheated steam drying include its inert atmosphere, enhanced drying rate, improved product quality and easier control.
This study presents a new concept of superheated steam drying in which the absorption temperature amplifier is effectively applied in order to recover the waste heat with high efficiency. A feature of this new drying system is that, owing to a closed circuit dryer, the consumption of heating energy decreases by approximately 50% of the conventional noncirculated one, and the superheated steam conventionally discharged so as to maintain the pressure of the dryer at an atmospheric one can be reused as heating energy for the generator of the absorption temperature amplifier. In the 1st report, thermal performances of this proposed system have been analyzed by a computer simulation developed for the solar-assisted absorption heat transformer model at the steady-state operating condition.
It may be fair to conclude that this drying system satisfies the desired operating conditions, although it involves some problems to be solved further in detail in future.
