Chemical Engineering Laboratory Report

3. Derived Results & Discussion

The experiment is conducted with the SOLTEQ Spray Dryer (Model: FD 20) to study the
effect of hot air temperature to the efficiency of drying process and the effect of feed rate to
the efficiency of drying process at constant operating temperature. Nescafe powder is used
in making a 200ml Nescafe solution for the drying process.

The first experiment is done to study the effect of different air temperatures on the efficiency
on drying process at a constant feed rate. 2 sets of data are collected with one air
temperature being measured at 140°C and another one at 160°C. Efficiency of the drying
process is being calculated from the initial and final powder weight. All raw tabulated data
and sample calculation are included in the appendix below.

Comparison chart of different temperatures on

67.85
Efficiency

67.8
140 °C 67.75
67.75

67.7
160 °C
67.65
Air Temperature

Figure 1: Comparison chart of different air temperatures on the efficiency of drying

Figure 1 above shows the bar chart of air temperatures of 140°C and 160°C and their
respective efficiency on drying the solution. The efficiency for 140°C of air temperature is
67.92% which is slightly higher than the efficiency for 160°C air temperature which is 67.75%.
Theoretically, a higher inlet temperature will accelerate drying rate and increased the
humidity causing larger particle formed as well as more efficient drying result (Linke et al.,
2019). The higher the temperature means higher kinetic energy of particles thus resulting in
higher evaporation rate of solvent.

However, the experiment result shows that 140°C air temperature has a slightly higher
efficiency than air temperature of 160°C. As researched, it is desirable for the formation of a
membrane which is semipermeable on the surface of a droplet with higher inlet air
temperature (Pino, 2011). However, temperature too high can also cause heat damage to
the product due to surface disruption hence resulting in increasing losses of product during
drying process. This will cause the particles to become sticky and cake and resulting the
particles to adhere on the wall surface of the cyclone chamber (Bassoli, 1993). This explains
why at 160°C the efficiency calculated is slightly lower than 140°C.

The other reason made is that the temperature of 140°C and 160°C is only 20°C difference
hence resulting about 0.16% of error difference. The experiment should be repeated with
more different air temperatures and with larger range between one another to study the trend
of the efficiency effect from temperature.

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The second experiment is done to study the effect of different speed rate on the efficiency
of drying process at a constant operating temperature which is set to be 140°C. The feed
rate is being controlled by adjusting the speed of the fan to half speed and full speed.

Comparison chart of different fan speed on

40.0
30.0 Full
20.0
Speed Half
10.0 Speed
0.0
Fan speed

Figure 2: Comparison chart of different fan speed on efficiency of drying process.

Figure 2 above shows the bar chart of different fan speed and their efficiency on the drying
process. The efficiency of the fan speed at full is 67.92% while the efficiency of the fan
speed at half is 46.3%. Based on the bar chart above, higher fan speed means higher feed
flow rate hence resulting in higher efficiency.

With atomization pressure kept at constant, the feed flow rate is adjusted to pump the feed
solution into the atomizer. Based on research, with increasing flow rates of the feed
solution, the droplet size increases (Santos, 2017). This is because during atomization
process, the same amount of energy is used regardless of different flow rates. Thus, higher
flow rates with constant energy used will minimize the droplet fissions, resulting smaller
reduction of size. Hence, the powder collected at the end is at larger size and heavier
weight. This explains that higher fan speed leading to higher feed flow rate hence higher
efficiency of drying.

4.Summary of Findings

The first experiment results in the conclusion of higher air temperature will increase the
efficiency of drying process. However, spray dryer has an optimum operating temperature
that can give the best efficiency. When temperature is too high, it may cause damage to the
surface of the droplets and causing the product to be lost during drying process, resulting in
lower efficiency.

The second experiment concludes that the higher the fan speed, the higher the feed flow
rate hence higher efficiency of drying process. This is due to higher feed flow rate will result
in larger droplets hence final weight will increase compared to the smaller droplets from lower
feed flow rate.

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5. References

1. Bassoli, D. (1993) Instant coffee with natural aroma by spray drying. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/266385695_Instant_coffee_with_natural
_aroma_by_spray-drying

2. Santos, D., Maurício, A.C., Sencadas, V., Santos, J.D., Fernandes, M.H. and
Gomes, P.S. (2017). Spray Drying: An Overview. Available at:
https://www.intechopen.com/books/biomaterials-physics-and-chemistry-new-
edition/spray-drying-an-overview

3. Linke, A., Linke, T. and Hinrichs, J. (2019) ‘Impact of the spray drying
conditions’, Drying Technology, 1-14. Available at:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334973827_Factors_determining_the_s
urface_oil_concentration_of_encapsulated_lipid_particles-
impact_of_the_spray_drying_conditions/stats

4. Pino, J.A., Reineccius, G.A. and Lantigua, M. (2011) ‘Influence of spray-dryer air
temperatures on encapsulated mandarin oil’, Drying Technology, 29(5) pp. 520-
526. Available at:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07373937.2010.513780

6. Appendix

Raw tabulated data from experiment 1 and experiment 2:

Table 1 and 2 shows the tabulated data of effect of air temperatures on efficiency with
constant speed fan.

Table 1: Comparing different effect of different air temperatures (140°C) with constant
fan speed.
Temperature Set, °C 140
Fan Speed Full Speed
Initial Feed Powder Weight, g 12
Initial Collector Weight, g 275.6
Final Collector Weight, g 283.75
Final Weight, g 8.15
Efficiency 67.91667

Table 2: Comparing different effect of different air temperatures (160°C) with constant
fan speed.
Temperature Set, °C 160
Fan Speed Full Speed
Initial Feed Powder Weight, g 12
Initial Collector Weight, g 275.6
Final Collector Weight, g 283.73
Final Weight, g 8.13
Efficiency 67.75

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Table 3 and 4 shows the tabulated data of effect of different fan speeds on efficiency with
constant temperature.

Table 3: Comparing the effects of different fan speeds (full speed) with constant air
temperature.
Temperature Set, °C 140
Fan Speed Full Speed
Initial Feed Powder Weight, g 12
Initial Collector Weight, g 275.6
Final Collector Weight, g 283.75
Final Weight, g 8.15
Efficiency 67.91667

Table 4: Comparing the effects of different fan speeds (half speed) with constant air
temperature.
Temperature Set, °C 140
Fan Speed Half Speed
Initial Feed Powder Weight, g 12
Initial Collector Weight, g 275.6
Final Collector Weight, g 281.16
Final Weight, g 5.56
Efficiency 46.33333

Sample calculations:

𝐹𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
𝐸𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 = × 100%
𝐼𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝐹𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑊𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡
8.15
= × 100%
12

= 67.92%

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