Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226

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Advanced Powder Technology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apt

Original Research Paper

A distributed parameter model for particles in the spray drying process

S. Wang *, T.A.G. Langrish
School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Building J01, The Chemical Engineering Building, The University of Sydney, Darlington, NSW 2006, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A multicomponent particle drying model has been developed to describe the compositions and temper-
Received 8 January 2009 atures of spray-dried particles using distributed drying kinetics. This means that component migration is
Received in revised form 16 March 2009 expected to occur within the particles, thus temperature and moisture content gradients through the par-
Accepted 17 March 2009
ticles are present and might not be uniform. Particles are divided into a number of shells and may be
spray dried from a solution of several solutes dissolved in water, such as sugars and proteins. The model
simulates the drying kinetics within a concurrent spray dryer and also accounts for the effects of the sol-
Keywords:
ubilities of the solids, as well as surface activity of the components. The model has been successfully com-
Multicomponent model
Component migration
pared with an analytical solution for evaporation alone, to test the modelling of the external heat and
Spray drying mass-transfer processes. The model has also been compared with an analytical solution for internal dif-
Proteins fusion in a sphere, which has tested the modelling of the internal heat and mass-transfer processes.
Ó 2009 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier BV and The Society of Powder
Technology Japan. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Segregation has been observed during the spray drying of milk,
where the fat, lactose and protein segregate through the dried milk
particle [1,2]. Kim et al. [1] have done experimental work in this
area, but modelling of the problem has not yet been done. In their
work, Kim et al. [1] have found that fat tends to accumulate on the
outermost layer of a spray-dried milk particle. Nijdam and Lang-
rish [2] confirmed that fat and protein accumulate near the surface,
preferentially to lactose. Segregation has advantages and disadvan-
tages. The advantages of protein coating are that it may increase
the yield and improve the storage characteristics; and the potential
disadvantages include non-uniform dissolution and release of the
materials within the particles. Kim et al. [1] explained component
segregation in spray dried milk by suggesting that the particle dry-
ing process occurs via three different processes. The first process
suggests that an initial layer of crust forms on the outermost layer
of the droplet, which increases in thickness towards the centre of
the droplet as evaporation continues. The second mechanism sug-
gests that, as drying occurs, the difference in concentrations caused
by the precipitation of solids drives the diffusion of moisture and
the dissolved components within the droplet. The third mecha-
nism considers the surface activity of the different components
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: swan3658@mail.usyd.edu.au (S. Wang), T.Langrish@usyd.edu.au
(T.A.G. Langrish).
as the driving force for the diffusion. A model, which describes
these mechanisms, may be developed to predict the extent of com-
ponent segregation.
There are two fundamental approaches to modelling drying
processes, namely lumped-parameter approaches and distrib-
uted-parameter approaches. Lumped-parameter approaches,
which assume that the physical properties and components of
the drying materials remain uniform throughout the particle, in-
clude the concept of a characteristic drying curve and the reac-
tion engineering approach. These models, by definition, do not
allow component segregation to occur [3–5]. Alternatively, using
a distributed-parameter approach, when applied to the spray
drying of milk particles, means that the different layers of the
spray-dried milk particle may contain different concentrations
of the components, such as fat and protein. This approach is
therefore consistent with the component segregation phenome-
non. Some researchers have attempted to model component seg-
regation to predict the product composition profiles. For example,
the drying of drops of solutions, based on moisture diffusion
through solids, has been modelled for carbohydrates to investi-
gate surface stickiness [6]. It divides each droplet into layers,
with evaporation only occurring on the surface and moisture dif-
fusing outwards from the centre. The dissolved solutes are as-
sumed to be in solid form and cannot diffuse through the
droplet. Thus this model only allows the moisture content to dif-
fer within the droplet while component segregation is not possi-
ble. Seydel et al. [7] proposed a distributed-parameter model for
solid formation during spray drying which allows for the evalua-
tion of concentrations of components at different distances from
the centre of the droplet. In their studies, Seydel et al. [7] empha-

0921-8831/$ - see front matter Ó 2009 The Society of Powder Technology Japan. Published by Elsevier BV and The Society of Powder Technology Japan. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.apt.2009.03.004
 S. Wang, T.A.G. Langrish / Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226
sised the occurrence of hollowed particles and did not attempt to
predict the degree of component segregation.
The lumped and the distributed-parameter models from the
literature do not allow for the phenomenon of the migration of
milk components during drying as observed. To understand
and predict this, a new distributed-parameter model has been
set up to study the implications of diffusion for both the solvent
and the dissolved components. The model also considers the ef-
fects of different solubilities of solutes. In this work, we compare
the numerical simulation that solves this model with test cases,
including some experimental data and some analytical solutions
for evaporation and for internal diffusion, to check the predic-
tions of this simulation for external and internal heat and
mass-transfer processes.
2. Numerical methods – model development
This model has been developed to predict the compositions and
temperatures of spray-dried particles using distributed drying
kinetics. Component migration is expected to occur within the par-
ticles, thus temperature and moisture gradients through the parti-
cles are present and might not be uniform. In this model particles
are assumed to be spherical. These particles are divided into j shells
and are formed from a solution containing several solutes such as
sugars and proteins. The model simulates the drying kinetics with-
in a concurrent spray dryer. The following assumptions have been
used for the spray dryer:
 All particles are assumed to move downwards within the drying
chamber.
 No agglomeration or break up of particles occurs within the
dryer.
 No temperature and humidity gradients are present at any
cross-section for air within the drying chamber.
 There are no radial and tangential components of the inlet air
velocity and the axial velocity is assumed to be uniform at every
cross-section of the drying chamber.
The assumptions used in the particle drying model are as following:
 Heat transfer only occurs through conduction inside the particle.
These assumptions are only limitations of the model related to
the treatment of the dryer and not related to the drying kinetics of
the particles. The approach to handling the drying kinetics can be
implemented in a more advanced spray-dryer simulation such as
Computational Fluid Dynamics. At the moment, one assumption
in the drying kinetics is that the shrinkage of droplets follows
the amount of water lost, thus inflation and deflation of the drop-
lets due to puffing, expansion and contraction of trapped gases are
not included. The assignment of the state variables for the model
within each particle is described next.
Fig. 1. Schematic description of state variables within a four-layered particle.
221
2.1. Assignment of state variables within particles and droplets
The assignment of state variables is shown schematically in
Fig. 1. Four layers are used here simply as an example, and any
number of layers can be used.
As shown in Fig. 1, the particle used to demonstrate the assign-
ment of the state variables within this particle is made up of four
shells, with the outermost shell labelled as 1. Rpart is used to denote
the outer radius of each shell, i.e., Rpart1 denotes the distance from
the centre of the particle to the outer surface of the shell. Dr is the
distance between the layers and can be found using Eq. (1):
Drj ¼ ðdpart;j  dpart;jþ1 Þ=2 ð1Þ
The positions, at which temperature and moisture contents of
the shells can be estimated, are symbolised by ‘‘d”. Dx is the dis-
tance between these positions and thus the pathway across which
mass transfer occurs between the neighbouring layers. Dx is calcu-
lated using the equations below:
At the surface : Dx1 ¼ Dr1 þ ðDr 2 =2Þ ð2Þ
Between the surface and the centre : Dxj ¼ ðDr j þ Dr jþ1 Þ=2 ð3Þ
In the centre of particleðnth shellÞ : Dxn1 ¼ Dr n þ ðDr n1 =2Þ ð4Þ
Tavx and Xavx are the temperature and moisture content esti-
mated at the interface between the shells. They are estimated
using weighted averages from T and X as stored at the designated
positions shown in Fig. 1. Tavx1 and Xavx1 are calculated in a similar
way as shown in Eq. (5), here, SV stands for both of the state vari-
ables T and X:
SV av x 1 ¼ ðSV 1  Dr 1 þ SV 2  ðDr 2 =2ÞÞ=ðDr1 þ ðDr 2 =2ÞÞ ð5Þ
2.2. The equations of the overall model
2.2.1. The trajectory of the particles
The equations defining the velocity and trajectory of the parti-
cles are adapted directly from Truong et al. [8] and will not be
shown here. These equations predict the axial (Upx), radial (Upr)
and tangential velocities (Upt) of particles as well as, UR,, the
velocity of particles relative to that of the air. The radial distance
for each droplet or particle is also calculated using Upr and Upx. Re,
the Reynolds number, is calculated using equations adapted from
Truong et al. [8]. Cd is found using the Schiller–Naumann equa-
tion for estimating particle drag [9]. Droplets are assumed to
shrink in size according to balloon shrinkage without crust form-
ing [8].
2.3. Mass balances for particles
2.3.1. Mass flow rate by diffusion within the particles
The mass flux of each component by diffusion is calculated indi-
vidually before being combined to estimate the total mass flux for
each layer. The overall mass balances as well as the component
222 S. Wang, T.A.G. Langrish / Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226

balances are calculated using these flux values. The mass fluxes of 2.3.4. Mass balance for the intermediate layers
all components between the 1st to the jth shell are estimated using Water balance of intermediate layers and component mass bal-
the general form shown in Eq. (6), which calculates the mass flow _ w and m
ances of dissolved solids are both shown in Table 1. m _ x are
rate of component x from layer j1 into j by diffusion. Rpart(i,j) is the mass flux of water and dissolved species x by diffusion, respec-
the radius of the jth shell of the ith particle: tively, passing through the intermediate layer interfaces. Cx is the
concentration of the dissolved species x.
_ x ði; jÞ ¼ 2pRpart ði; jÞ2 ððDx;T ði; jÞ
m
 ðC x ði; j  1Þ  C x ði; jÞÞÞ=Dxði; j  1ÞÞ ð6Þ 2.3.5. Mass balance for the central nth layer
_ x is the diffusion rate of species x into j layer from layer j1, Water balance of nth layer is simply the water mass flux by dif-
Here m
fusion, m_ w , passing through the nth layer interface into the layer by
and D is the diffusivity of the component. In the cases of dissolved
diffusion as shown in Table 1. The component balances for the dis-
solids, D takes the form of DxT which is the diffusivity of solid x
solved solids in the nth layer are the mass fluxes into the layer, as
through water in a dilute solution, and Cx is the concentration of
shown in Table 1. m _ x is the mass flux by diffusion passing through
the species for dissolved components. DxT follows the Stokes–
the nth layer interface of component x, and Cx is the concentration
Einstein equation and thus is directly related to temperature. The
of solid species x.
diffusivities may be estimated from the literature. Dw, the diffusion
coefficient of water through the dissolved solids is used to calculate
2.4. Solubility of the dissolved solids
the diffusion flux of water. The function used to estimate Dw is
adapted from Adhikari et al. [6]. Concentrations of the dissolved
As evaporation occurs on the surface of the particles, water dif-
components are calculated by Eq. (7):
, ! fuses out from the inner layers. The moisture contents within these
X layers decrease with time and the concentration of dissolved solids
C x ¼ mx =mtotal ði; jÞ ¼ mx mw ði; jÞ þ mx ði; jÞ ð7Þ changes due to diffusion. When the concentrations of these solutes
x
reach saturation levels, solids start to form within the layers. The
mw and mx are the mass of water and the dissolved components, mass balance of the solids that precipitate out in each layer is cal-
respectively. culated by Eq. (10):

2.3.2. Summary of heat and mass balances for different layers
The heat and mass balance for water and the dissolved compo-
nents of different parts of the particles are listed in Table 1.
2.3.3. Mass balance for layer 1
Water, being volatile, evaporates from the particles at their sur-
faces. The water balance of the first layer thus includes a term for
evaporation, as shown in Table 1. m _ w is the water mass flux be-
tween layers one and two, m _ w;v ap is the mass flux of water being
evaporated from the surface of the particles and is calculated using
Eq. (8):
_ w;v ap ¼ p  ðK p ðp /  pbulk Þ  dpart ði; 1Þ2 Þ
m ð8Þ
/ is the relative humidity of air, estimated using the modified Hen-
derson model [8]. Kp is the partial pressure based external mass-
transfer coefficient (m2s/kg):
K p ¼ ðqa Dw=a Sh=dparti ÞM w =ðM a PÞ ð9Þ
Mw and Ma are the molecular weight of water and air, respectively
(g/mol), P is pressure (Pa), Sh is the Sherwood number and Dw/a is
the diffusivity of water through air (m2/s), which can be found in lit-
erature [8].
Component balances for layer one can be represented by a gen-
eral equation, as shown in Table 1. m _ x is the mass flux of species x
from layer one into layer two and Cx is the concentration of solid x
in layer one. The first term of the component balance for the shell
one is due to the diffusion of dissolved solid species, and the sec-
ond term represents movement of this solid species while dis-
solved in water, which is also moving.
dmpxs
¼ ðC x ði; jÞ  C x max ði; jÞÞ  mpði; jÞ ð10Þ
dh
mpxs is the accumulated mass of the precipitated solid of species x
within each layer. Cxmax is the saturation concentration of the dis-
solved solids, which are temperature dependent and have been ex-
pressed as functions of temperature experimentally.
2.5. Heat flow rate equations
Like the mass balances, heat balances are also calculated by first
calculating the flux of heat between the layers. It is assumed that
heat transfer within the particle or droplet only occurs by conduc-
tion. This flux is calculated using Eq. (11):
_ jÞ ¼ ðpdp ði; jÞ2 K mat ðTði; j  1Þ  Tði; jÞÞÞ=ðDxði; j  1ÞÞ
Hði; ð11Þ
Kmat is the thermal conductivity of the material, which may vary
with composition and temperature, and H_ is the heat flow rate from
shell j1 into shell j.
2.5.1. Heat balance for layer 1
Besides warming the particles up, heat is used to evaporate
moisture at the surface of the particles. Energy is transferred
to the first layer by the hot drying medium. The heat balance
of the first shell is calculated by the equation shown in Table
1. Here Cpv, Cps and Cpw are the specific heats of vapour, solid
and water, respectively. H_ a is the heat transferred from the dry-
ing medium to heat up the first shell and H_ ev ap is the evaporative
heat load or duty. These terms are calculated in Eqs. (12) and
(13):

Table 1
Mass and energy balance of the different components of particles.

Equations 1st shell Middle shells Centre

_ w;v ap ði;2Þm
m _ w ði;2Þ _ w ði;jÞm
ðm _ w ði;jþ1Þ _ w ði;nÞ
m
Water mass balance U px ðiÞ U px ðiÞ U px ðiÞ
_ x ði;2Þm
½m _ w ði;2ÞC x ði;1Þ _ x ði;jÞm
½m _ x ði;jþ1Þþm
_ w ði;jÞC x ði;j1Þm
_ w ði;jþ1ÞC x ði;jÞ _ x ði;nÞþm
½m _ w ði;nÞC x ði;n1Þ
Component mass balance U px U px ðiÞ U px ðiÞ
½H_ a þH_ ev ap Hði;2Þ
_ _
½ðHði;jÞ _
Hði;jþ1ÞÞ _
½ðHði;nÞÞ
Heat balance ½ms ðC ps þXC pw ÞU px  ms ðC ps þXC pw ÞU px ms ðC ps þXC pw ÞU px
 S. Wang, T.A.G. Langrish / Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226 223

H_ a ¼ pdp ði; 1ÞK a NuðT B  Tði; 1ÞÞ ð12Þ cles of fraction i. The numerator adds up the total moisture mass,
dmp and the denominator calculates the total dry solid masses within
H_ ev ap ¼ Hfg U px ð13Þ all shells of the particles for all the size fractions.
dh
Nu is the Nusselt number [10], TB is the dry bulb temperature of the 2.8. Method of simulation
bulk air in the dryer, Hfg is the latent heat for water evaporation and
Ka is the thermal conductivity of air. The equations in the model have been solved using a fourth-or-
der Runge–Kutta procedure similar to that described in Truong
2.5.2. Heat balance for the intermediate and the central nth layer et al. [8]. For each step size, the heat and mass balances, as well
The heat balance for the intermediate shells and the central as the trajectory of all droplets, have been calculated first. The
layer are both shown in Table 1. H _ is the heat transfer rate through evaporated moisture from all fractions of particles has then been
the respective layer interface. added to the drying gas, increasing the humidity. A similar proce-
dure has been used to estimate the enthalpy and temperature of
2.6. Mass and heat balance for the drying medium (air) the drying air. The outputs from this step are used as the input val-
ues for the next iteration. The program stops when all particles exit
The mass balance for the drying medium is adapted directly the dryer. The distance from the atomizer to the exit is set to be
from Troung et al. [8]. A heat balance for the air, accounting for 0.48 m (based on the length of the Buchi small-scale 290 advanced
the heat required to evaporate moisture from the droplets or par- spray dryer). The program is written using Matlab.
ticles, convective heating or cooling of droplets or particles, and
heat lost from the dryer, is shown in Eq. (14): 3. Result and discussion – model testing
" #
dHh X h i
¼ _ _
ðHev ap ðiÞ þ Ha ðiÞÞ =U px  U dryer ðT a  T amb Þ=L =G 3.1. Grid sensitivity check
dh droplets

G is the mass flow rate of the air, and Yb is the humidity of the bulk
air. Hh is the enthalpy of humid air. Ta and Tamb are the temperatures
of the drying medium (air) and ambient air, respectively. Udryer is
the overall heat-transfer coefficient from the walls of the spray
dryer to the ambient environment and L is the length of the
chamber.
2.7. Overall average moisture content
The average moisture content of the ith weight fraction of the
product can be calculated using the following equation:
!,
X X X X
X ov ðiÞ ¼ FðiÞX i ms;i
droplets shells droplets shells
F(i) is the frequency of the number distribution for the particles of
the size fraction i. msi is the mass of solid in each shell of the parti-
ð14Þ To carry out the grid sensitivity check and to test the external
moisture evaporation rate predicted by the simulation, the simula-
tion was run with low solid concentrations of 1% wt, no gravity and
no drag force. The effects of solubility of the dissolved solids and
their diffusion mechanism were ignored by setting the solubilities
to high values and setting the diffusion coefficients for the solutes
to zero values, while keeping the diffusion coefficient of water
none zero. By doing so, the model simulates the drying of a sus-
pended droplet of a very dilute solution under isothermal condi-
tions. A high air-to-liquid ratio was achieved to ensure there
would be little change in the gas temperature or humidity, by
using a low liquid flow rate of 1.78  106 kg/s and a high gas
! flow rate of 0.0108 m3/s. The initial conditions used are shown in
Table 2.
FðiÞms;i ð15Þ
Using the parameters as specified above, simulations were car-
ried out for different number of layers, to find out the minimum re-
quired to give average moisture contents that were not sensitive to
the use of further layers. The results are shown in Fig. 2.

Table 2
Parameters used in the analytical calculation of drying kinetics.

qa (kg/m3) la (105 kg/ms) Dp (107 m) P* (103 Pa) Ts (K) UR (m/s) P (105 Pa) Upx (m/s) Xs (kg/kg)
1.13 1.93 8.03 3.51 300 40.7 1.01 41.3 99

Fig. 2. Simulated Xov as a function of the number of layers and required simulation time.
224 S. Wang, T.A.G. Langrish / Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226

As observed in Fig. 2, the simulation results for the final average
particle moisture content change from 0.5 kg/kg at three layers to
0.74 kg/kg at nine layers. Simulations using more than nine layers
within the particle resulted in small fluctuations about the value of
0.74 kg/kg. This result suggests that dividing the particles into nine
control volumes is sufficient to give relatively insensitive results to
the numbers of control volumes, while further numbers of control
volumes mainly just increase the computation time.
3.2. Analytical calculations of the drying kinetics
The rate of drying predicted by the model has then been com-
pared with the solution obtained by solving the equations analyt-
ically. The parameters used for both the simulation and analytical
tests are as specified previously. The stepwise calculations for the
analytical solution at 40 °C are shown below:
drying) were chosen for the analytical calculations because they al-
low the solution droplets to dry more slowly compared with the
situation at gas temperatures such as 210 °C, which assist in com-
paring the model and analytical results. The analytical and the cor-
responding results generated by the model are shown in Table 3.
Here, drying rate is in kg of water evaporated per unit length of
dryer.
As observed in Table 3, the average rates of drying generated
from the simulations at inlet temperatures of 40 °C and 70 °C differ
by 0.04% and 0.06% from the corresponding analytical results,
respectively. The simulated constants at the initial drying condi-
tions are also similar to the analytical results. The negligible differ-
ences are probably due to round off errors occurred during
analytical calculations. Overall, it can be concluded that the simu-
lated external evaporation rate is practically identical to the ana-
lytical results.

Re ¼ ðqa U R dp Þ=l
3.3. Comparison with the literature: internal mass-transfer processes
¼ ð1:13  40:7  8:03  107 Þ=ð1:93  105 Þ ¼ 1:92 ð16Þ
Dw=a ¼ 1:17564  109  T 1:75
abs  P atm =P In this simulation, water evaporation is assumed to occur only
¼ 1:17564  10 9
 313 1:75 5
¼ 2:74  10 m s 2 1
ð17Þ at the surface. The mass transfer of water within the material lay-
ers occurs by diffusion. The rate of diffusion estimated by the sim-
Sc ¼ l=ðqa Dw;a Þ
ulation has been compared with the results of an analytical
¼ ð1:93  103 Þ=ð1:13  2:7  105 Þ ¼ 0:62 ð18Þ solution of the diffusion equation. In this analytical solution, time
pffiffiffiffiffiffi 1 is included in the Fourier number, which is more meaningful than
Sh ¼ 2:0 þ 0:6 Re  Sc3
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 1
the time itself, because the Fourier number includes the scale
¼ 2:0 þ 0:6 1:92  0:623 ¼ 2:71 ð19Þ (length or radius, r) and the diffusion coefficient, as will be de-
K m ¼ qa Dw=a Sh=dpart i  M w =M a P scribed next. This theoretical equation is shown below [12]:
¼ 1:13  2:7  105 =ð8:03  107 Þ v X
1
2 2 2
X
1
2 2
4 2 1 ¼1þ2 ð1Þn eðkn p tÞ=r ¼ 1 þ 2 ð1Þn eðF o n p Þ ð21Þ
 18:02=ð28:97  101325Þ ¼ 6:40  10 m s ð20Þ V n¼1 n¼1

The analytical results have been compared with the modelled where v/V is the fractional change in the moisture content at the cen-
results at inlet temperatures of 40 °C and 70 °C. These relatively tre of the spherical particles, defined by v =V ¼ XX i X
X c
e
 X c ; X i andX e are
i
low gas temperatures (compared to >100 °C typically used in spray the moisture contents of the centre, the initial particle and the

Table 3
Differences of calculated analytical results compared with simulated results.

T (°C) Dw,a (105 m2 s1) (%) Km (104 m1 s) (%) mw,vap (1012 kg s1) (%) Drying rate (1014 kg m1) (%)
40 0.03 0.03 0.03 0.04
70 0.00 0.06 0.06 0.06

Fig. 3. The rate at which the surface layer reaches moisture equilibrium, compared with the assumption made in the analytical solution.
 S. Wang, T.A.G. Langrish / Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226 225

Fig. 4. The results from the analytical and numerical solutions of the diffusion equation for different numbers of layers in the numerical solution.

equilibrium moisture content, respectively. Fo is the Fourier number,
which is defined to be Dt/r2, and D is the diffusion coefficient (m2/s).
The analytical solution includes the assumptions that the parti-
cle moisture content is initially uniform and that the surface of the
particle comes to equilibrium instantly. In the numerical solution,
the moisture content is uniform initially, but the surface does not
come to equilibrium instantly, like the real physical situation. The
predicted delay in the surface coming to equilibrium, from the
numerical solution, is shown in Fig. 3 to be around 0.001 s. This de-
lay may cause some minor discrepancies between the analytical
and numerical solutions, even when the numerical solutions have
a large number of layers, because the boundary conditions are not
exactly identical.
The comparison of the results from the analytical solution with
the results from the simulation is shown in Fig. 4 for different
numbers of layers in the numerical solution.
From Fig. 4, it is observed that the predicted rate of decrease in
the moisture content from the numerical solution at the central
layer of the particle is similar to that from the analytical solution.
All of the simulated results came within 1% of the equilibrium
moisture content within a similar period of time to the result of
about 0.6 s from the analytical solution. The small difference ob-
served between the simulated results and the analytical one may
be due to the assumption discussed above about the change in
the surface moisture content in the analytical solution, which is as-
sumed there to be instant. Physically, this is not the case, and this
physical behavior is reflected in the numerical solution as shown in
Fig. 3.
In Fig. 4, the results of simulations performed using different
layers of dividing the particles have also been compared with the
analytical solution. It is also observed from Fig. 1 that, as the num-
ber of layers is increased, the predicted shape of the initial drying
curve from the numerical solution is more similar to that esti-
mated by the analytical solution, in terms of the initial delay in
the drop of the centre moisture content (initial penetration period).
To explain this further, the schematic drawing in Fig. 5 is used and
the time taken by the initial penetration period is presented in
Table 4.
As illustrated in Fig. 5, unlike the analytical solution where the
‘centre’ of the particle is taken to be the exact point in the middle
of the particle, the ‘centre’ of the simulation is regarded as the nth
(inner most) layer of the particle. However, this difference is likely

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram showing the diffusion pathways of the analytical solution and the numerical simulation.
226 S. Wang, T.A.G. Langrish / Advanced Powder Technology 20 (2009) 220–226
Table 4
Penetration periods (onset Fourier number for the regular regime) for the analytical
and numerical solutions and the maximum discrepancy between the numerical
solutions and the analytical solution where the maximum discrepancy is calculated
by defined as (FoanalyticalFonumerical)/Foinitial  100(%).
Fo Maximum discrepancy from
the analytical solution (%)
Analytical solution 0.032 N.A
Numerical solution, 4 layers 0.007 11.3
Numerical solution 8 layers 0.015 9.21
Numerical solution 12 layers 0.018 6.52
Numerical solution 16 layers 0.022 5.62
Numerical solution 20 layers 0.026 5.62
to be small when the gradient in moisture content (with respect to
distance) is small, as is likely to be the case since the moisture is
removed from the surface. The concept of an initial penetration
period has been discussed by Keey [3], where he quoted the work
of Thijssen and Coumans [11] who found that during Fickian diffu-
sion, there is a penetration period where ‘‘a moisture-deluded zone
penetrate(s) the material”. During this period, the loss of moisture
front moves from the surface of the droplets progressively until it
reaches the centre. After this happens, the regular regime occurs,
where the droplet starts to lose moisture through the entire mate-
rial, including the centre. It is also observed in Table 4, where the
initial penetration period increased from a Fourier number of
0.01 to the Fourier number estimated by the analytical solution
of 0.03, when the number of layers used in the grid division is in-
creased from 4 to 20 layers. This situation also explains the fact
that as the number of layers is increased, the discrepancy de-
creases, since the ‘centre’ becomes smaller, with finer grid divi-
sions being used in the numerical simulation.
From Fig. 4, it is observed that as the number of layers increases,
the shape of simulated curves gets more similar to that from the
analytical solution in terms of the rate of diffusion. This is com-
pared next in Table 4, by calculating the maximum percentage dis-
crepancy between analytical and numerical solutions, where the
discrepancy is defined as (FoanalyticalFonumerical)/Foinitial  100(%).
This maximum discrepancy is observed from Table 4 to decrease
from 11.3% to 5.62% when the number of layer was increased from
4 to 16 layers. The discrepancy then became constant with a fur-
ther increase of number of layers used in the grid division, possibly
because of the slight difference in the boundary condition (Fig. 5).
A discrepancy of 5–6% seems tolerable, suggesting that 16 layers
are sufficient for further simulation work using the numerical
model.
3.4. Comparison with the literature: external heat and mass transfer
processes
To check this new multicomponent distributed parameter mod-
el in terms of external heat and mass transfer processes, the simu-
lated results were compared against modelled as well as
experimental results published by Adhikari et al. [6]. In their mod-
el, Adhikari et al. [6] studied the droplet and particle drying process
using experiments conducted within a cross-flow drying tunnel. In
this study droplet is held on a holder and dried in a chamber with
hot air blowing across it. The mass and temperature history of the
droplet is measured and recorded via the holder. During their
experiment the temperature of the water droplet rose to the
wet-bulb temperature of 38.5 °C at a time that was between
5–10 s after the start of the experiment. This result is longer com-
pared with the simulated results from both the solute fixed coordi-
nate model (<5 s) as well as the new multicomponent distributed
parameter model (3–4 s). In their work, Adhikari et al. [6] con-
cluded that the experimental and predicted values of the temper-
ature history of the water droplet agreed well with each other,
with an absolute error of less than 5%. Comparing the predicted
temperature of the two models, the multicomponent distributed
parameter model predicted the droplet temperature rose to
37.4 °C, compared with 38.5 °C as predicted by Adhikari et al. [6].
The small difference is likely to be due to the different assumptions
made in predicting the flux of evaporation. Adhikari et al. [6] in-
cluded a correction factor for high heat fluxes. In the distributed
parameter model, this correction factor was not applied, but this
can be included in the future.
4. Conclusions
A distributed-parameter, multi-component model has been set
up to simulate the spray drying process. This model takes the dif-
fusion of water, the diffusion of dissolved solids and the effects of
the solubilities of the solids into consideration. Dividing the parti-
cles into nine layers allows the model to give a grid-insensitive
solution. The drying kinetics of the particles have been examined
under isothermal conditions with low solids concentrations. The
simulated results have been compared with the analytical results,
and the agreement is very good. Both internal and external heat
and mass transfer processes have been checked against literature
solutions, with the internal diffusion process simulated in the
model matching the analytical solutions for diffusion very closely.
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