The drying of materials – whether solids, liquids, or slurries – to improve storage life, meet technological requirements, or reduce transportation costs is one of the oldest and most common industrial processing operations. Drying is an energy-intensive operation often consuming more than 50—60 percent of total energy input required for the entire process. In California, dried and dehydrated fruits and vegetables processing are estimated to consume more than 6.2 trillion Btu of energy per year. Improving the energy efficiency of industrial drying equipment will yield significant energy savings and greenhouse gas reduction across the diversified industrial market. This project demonstrated a natural gas-fired drying technology that provides cost and environmental benefits for a broad range of agricultural and industrial applications. The concept involves integrating a drying process with an innovative thermal driven ejector system. The full-scale demonstration of this concept at a California food processor was successful to prove the effectiveness of the ejector system in producing adequate dynamic vacuum and acting as an integrated heat pump. However, mechanical challenges with the system provide an opportunity for further development and demonstration of the thermo-vacuum drying system as the next step in commercializing this energy-efficient alternative to traditional drying technologies.
Author(s)
Yaroslav Chudnovsky, Olexiy Buyadgie, Dmytro Buyadgie, Erin Case
