Infrared and convective drying of thin layer of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/glycerol/water mixture—The reaction engineering approach (REA)

More extensive use of industrial polymeric products in industry and domestic markets requires larger quantities of such products being dried. The ability to describe drying of these products quantitatively is becoming more important. An appropriate drying model can assist in design to save energy. Most published studies have employed diffusion-based models to describe drying kinetics which require substantial amount of work to determine diffusivity function. Reaction engineering approach (REA) is a simple-lumped but accurate model which can be implemented in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) for coupling of objects being dried and flow field around. In this paper, the reaction engineering approach (REA) is implemented as a simple alternative to describe the drying kinetics of a thin layer of polymer solution in constant convective drying condition for the first time. Results show that the model is suitable when compared to published experimental data. In addition, for infrared drying a new definition of ΔEv,b (maximum activation energy) had to be introduced. With this new definition, the reaction engineering approach (REA) describes the drying kinetics of infrared drying very well.