Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications in spray drying of food products

The application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in the area of spray drying of food ingredients is reviewed. The results from previous studies have shown that CFD can be useful tool for predicting the gas flow pattern and particle histories such as temperature, velocity, residence time and impact position. Moreover, CFD can also be used for investigating different chamber design on drying behaviour of food materials as well as scale-up studies. This paper provides the air–particle interactions, different turbulence models, reference frames, reaction engineering model used for spray-drying applications along with the particle histories and different spray chamber configurations. The recent developments in this research area such as drying kinetics model, droplet–droplet interactions, unsteady state simulations and integration of population balance model are discussed. In addition, the current limitations and future scope for the potential research are also highlighted.