TABLE OF CONTENT

No Contents Pages

1 Abstract 2

2 Introduction 3

3 Objectives 6

4 Theory 7

5 Apparatus 10

6 Methodology 11

7 Results of Experiment 12

8 Calculations 13

9 Discussion 20

10 Conclusion 22

11 Recommendations 23

12 References 24

13 Appendix 25
ABSTRACT

Tray dryer operating mechanism is by passing hot air over the surface of a wet solid.
The wet solid is spread all over trays that arranged in racks. This mechanism classifies as the
simplest and the least-expensive dryer type. This drying method involves removal of relatively
small amounts of water or moisture contents from a material or process stream. Which also can
be called as mass transfer process. The main purpose of this experiment is to conduct a drying
process of potato to investigate the drying rate, moisture content after drying and the effect of
different velocity of air on drying rate of the potato. The potato was sliced thinly and then it
was arranged and cover all the surface area of the trays. In the experiment, the mass of the
potato was weighted before and after process occur. The mass of the potato was recorded for
every 10 minutes during the process. From the experiment, it shows that the moisture content
and the drying rate decreases as time increase. The drying curve of the potato follows the
theoretical drying curve. This tray dyer process is the least effective compared with other types
of batch dryers. Objectives of this experiment are successfully achieved; thus, the experiment
is successfully done.
INTRODUCTION

Drying is one of a mass transfer process which removes moisture contents from a material
or a process stream. Before packaging and selling products, drying process are used as the final
step of the operation in industries area. As in drying process, moisture content of the material
is being dried up, therefore material used must be in a solid form. Examples of application of
drying method are such as hot air, contact drying, dielectric drying, freezing drying and super
critical drying. Other than that, equipment that are used for drying process are Tray Dryer,
Vacuum-Shelf Indirect Dryer, Continuous Tunnel Dryer, Rotary Dryer, Drum Dryer and Spray
Dryer.

Tray dryer is the most common equipment used in industries as their drying operation. The
dryers have cabinets that hold stacks of trays which connected with source of heated air. The
operation mechanism of tray dryer is an air current channelling the heat to sweep the hot air
across the trays or by conduction from heated trays or shelves where the trays are hold on to
and by radiation from heated surfaces. The tray must be tightly place in the cabinet for the air
to pass the material to dry them efficiently. Usually, tray dryer took longer time to dry the
material needed. In industries, tray dryer operates about 12 to 48 hours for solids to be dry.
This happens because it has poor control and chances to produce large variable of product
quality. However, this equipment requires low capital and least maintenance cost.
OBJECTIVES

There are few objectives in conducting the experiments:

1. To determine the drying rate and the moisture content of the sample through removal
of water.
2. The effect of velocity of air on drying rate of the sample by performing drying process.
3. To learn how to operate the tray dryer
4. To compare between tray dryer with other types of batch dryers.
THEORY

Tray dryers are the simplest and least expensive dryer type. The operation of tray dryer
is by passing hot air over the surface of a wet solid that is spread over trays arranged in racks.
Food and pharmaceutical industries are the most widely used using tray dryer. There are few
advantages of tray dryer such as low initial cost and their versatility. Drying usually takes long
time like 12 hours to 48 hours.

Drying process is a formation of a dry solid from the vaporization and removal of water
or other liquids from a suspension, solution or other solid-liquid mixture. In this drying process,
it involves heat and mass transfer. The vaporization of liquid by supplying heat to the wet
feedstock will resulting drying occurred. Based on the mechanism of heat transfer, drying is
categorized into 3 categories which are the direct known as convection, indirect or contact
known as conduction, radiation and dielectric or microwave known as radio frequency drying.

There are two important things in the drying process which are the heat transfer and the
mass transfer. Heat is supplied to the product to evaporate the liquid contained, and mass is
transferred as a vapor into the surrounding gas. Determination of drying rate is by the set of
factors that affect heat and mass transfer. There are two distinct drying zones that solid drying
need to obey which are the constant-rate period and the falling rate period. Critical moisture
content is a break point where the two zones are defined by.

Based on the figure 1- It illustrate a graph of moisture content versus drying rate and
moisture content versus time. In graph A, segment AB represents the constant rate period. In
that phase, it is a process of evaporation of moisture from a saturated surface of a product at a
rate governed by diffusion from the surface through the stationary air film that is in contact
with. To determine the temperature of saturated surface is depends on the air temperature,
humidity and speed of moisture to the surface. To maintain saturation, liquid must be
transported to the surface at a rate enough during the constant rate period.
 Figure 1: Segment AB of the graph represents the constant-rate drying period, while
segment BC is the falling-rate period (Parikh, 2014)

Based on Figure 1(A), at the end of the constant rate period, a break in the drying curve
occurs where it is called critical moisture content and a linear fall in drying rate occurs with
further drying. It is called first falling-rate period in part BC. As the drying process occurs, the
mechanism that controls the transfer will influence the rate of drying at a decreasing rate so
that the moisture reaches the surface. The temperature will tend to rise above wet bulb
temperature since the surface is no longer saturated. The last segment which is the CD segment
called as the second falling-rate period and is controlled by vapor diffusion.

Movement of liquid may occur by the depletion of water at the surface and will create
a diffusion under the concentration gradient. The gradient can be affected by evaporation, or
resulting the capillary forces, or through a cycle of vaporization and condensation or by effect
osmotic. To determine the drying rate and establishes the duration of the drying cycle is by the
amount of the gas stream to absorb and carry away the moisture. Inlet air temperature and the
air flowrate are two important elements in this process. Theoretically, as the temperature of
drying rate increase, the greater the vapor holding capacity.
MATERIALS AND APPARATUS

Material:

1. Potatoes

Apparatus:

1. Knife

2. Chopping board

3. Tray Dryer Training Unit CE– 130

4. Anemometer

Figure 2: Tray Dryer Training Unit CE– 130

METHODOLOGY

Start-up procedures:

1) The main switch of the tray dryer machine is opened.

2) Then, the fan power was opened, and the toggle turned to the lowest speed.

3) Lastly, the heater was opened, and the toggle turned to scale 7.

Preparation procedures:

1) The drying trays has been washed to remove any filthiness.

2) The mass of drying trays is measured by inserted into the support frame. The data were
recorded.

3) The potatoes are sliced thinly and been arranged together in the entire tray for all tray.

4) The tray filled with potatoes slices then being weight by inserted the tray into the supporting
frame. The data were recorded.

5) The initial temperature and humidity were recorded. Then the initial air flow inside the tray
dryers is measured by using anemometer and the reading were recorded.

6) Then, all the data were recorded for every 10 minutes in 90 minutes time of the drying
process.

7) After 90 minutes, all the trays were taken out from the dryer machine and cleaned.

Shut-down procedures:

1) The heater toggle was turned to scale 0. Then, the heater and fan switch were turned off.

2) The main switch of the tray dryer machined was turned off.
RESULTS

Mass of tray = 1388.80 g

Mass of tray + potato = 2214.60 g
Mass of potato = 825.80 g

Table 1: Temperature, Humidity, Velocity and Mass Properties of Potato at Respective

Time

Time (min) Temperature Humidity (%) Velocity (m/s) Mass of Potato

(°C) (g)
T1 T2 H1 H2
0 30.6 30.2 8.7 6.5 1.17 825.9
10 45.2 41.0 8.7 6.8 1.37 758.5
20 45.9 41.8 7.9 6.6 1.33 748.1
30 46.0 43.8 7.8 6.6 1.30 703.9
40 46.1 43.8 7.7 6.6 1.30 660.2
50 46.0 41.8 7.8 6.6 1.35 628.4
60 45.8 42.7 7.8 6.6 1.36 576.7
70 46.0 43.9 7.7 6.6 1.37 538.2
80 45.8 43.9 7.8 6.6 1.42 499.2
90 45.9 44.0 7.7 6.6 1.40 443.8
100 46.0 44.2 7.7 6.6 1.41 433.3
110 46.0 44.3 7.7 6.6 1.43 402.8
120 46.0 44.4 7.7 6.6 1.42 380.5

Table 2: Drying Rate and Moisture Content

Time (min) Mass of Potato (kg) Moisture Content Drying Rate

(v) (𝐦𝐢𝐧 𝟏 )
0 0.8259 1.1706 0.0177
10 0.7585 0.9934 0.0027
20 0.7481 0.9661 0.0116
30 0.7039 0.8499 0.0115
40 0.6602 0.7351 0.0084
50 0.6284 0.6515 0.0136
60 0.5767 0.5156 0.0101
70 0.5382 0.4145 0.0103
80 0.4992 0.3120 0.0146
90 0.4438 0.1664 0.0028
100 0.4333 0.1388 0.0080
110 0.4028 0.0586 0.0059
120 0.3805 0 0
CALCULATIONS

Total Mass of Wet Potato + Tray = 2.2146 kg

Total Mass of Tray = 1.3888 kg

Mass Balance: Mass in = Mass out

Initial Total Mass (kg) = Final Total Mass + Mass of Water Evaporated

Mass of Water Evaporated = Initial Total Mass – Final Total Mass

= 0.8259 – 0.3805

= 0.4454 kg

( )
Moisture Content (v) =
( )

At 0 min,

. .
Moisture Content, v =
.

= 1.1706

At 10 min,

. .
Moisture Content, v =
.

= 0.9934

By recording the sample weight for every 10 minutes,

( ) ( )
Drying Rate =

At 0 min,

. .
Drying Rate =

= 0.0177

At 10 min,
 . .
Drying Rate =

= 0.0027
DISCUSSIONS

Drying known as a process of removal of relatively small amount of water from a

material. The removed water from the material is usually in form of vapour and is transported
in the air. In this experiment, it is classified as batch where the material was inserted in the
drying equipment and process occur in given period of time. The purpose of this experiment is
to sketch the drying curve based on the moisture content of the potato slices within the time
taken. Theoretically, the process of drying in this experiment that can cause the moisture
content reduces in the potato slices is where heat and air was supplied into the dryer which is
absorbed by the potato slices and will occur the mass transfer by evaporating the water in the
sample and transport the molecules using air velocity.

Based in the results obtained in Table 1, It shows the humidity from the experiment
according to the time taken to dry the samples every 10 minutes for a total of 120 minutes. In
the first 10 minutes of the experiment, the humidity that was recorded was 8.7 for H1 and 6.8
for H2 while the temperature was 45.2 for T1 and 41.0 for T2, respectively. Meanwhile along
the experiment, it states that the humidity value at point 1 decreases when it reaches to point 2
for all readings. This shows that the equipment has high efficiency and drying rate since it
transfers a lot of water content from the material to the outlet. It is noted that the value of T1
and H1 are the readings before the trays undergoes the drying process while T2 and H2 are the
readings after the drying process.

Furthermore, in table 2 indicate the moisture content of potatoes are reduces from
1.1706 to 0 while the drying rate decreases to 0 from 0.0177 min⁻¹. The moisture content of
potatoes decreases proportionally with time taken as shown in the figure 3. The graph indicates
when the time increase, the moisture content of potatoes will decrease. As the moisture content
of potatoes decreases, the initial weight of potatoes which is 825.80 g are reduced from the
starting of experiment until the end for every 10 minutes which can be used to calculate the
moisture content in potatoes. When the moisture content approaching zero value, it means that
the potatoes are completely dried as there is no water left in the potatoes. This is because the
water in potatoes vaporized when the dry air flow through the potatoes. It is important to ensure
that moisture content of the potatoes below 5% at least in order to avoid any growth of
microorganisms and bacteria.
 Moisture Content vs Time
1.4

1.2
Moisture Content (v)
1

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Time (min)

Figure 3: Graph of Moisture Content versus Time

Drying Rate vs Time

0.02
0.018
0.016
Dying Rate (min^-1)

0.014
0.012
0.01
0.008
0.006
0.004
0.002
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120
Time (min)

Figure 4: Graph of Drying Rate versus Time

From the graph, the drying rate rapidly decrease when the time increase from 0 min to
10 min then, at 20 min, the drying rate starts to increase. At 20 min to 80 min, there are increase
and decrease in drying rate in a constant pattern. Then, there is a sudden change at 80 min to
90 min where the drying rate is decrease and start to increase at 100 min then decrease until
120 min. Drying rate versus time is not consistent through in the experiment because of the
error in collecting data from the experiment.
 Figure 5: Graph of Drying Rate versus Moisture Content (Drying Curve)

For overall result, at the end of this experiment, the drying rate along with the moisture
content of the dried potato were being analyse. Figure 6 shows the pattern of relation between
drying rate and moisture content of potato. Drying process will take longer time when the
moisture content in potato is high. From the results obtain, constant rate and falling rate of
drying process can be seen irregularly happens and not proportional within the moisture content
of the potato. When the rate of drying is stable along the moisture content it is called as constant
rate while when the potato reaches its critical moisture content, the falling rate increases.

Figure 6: The Drying Curve for the Potatoes.

 The velocity of the air coming from the blower of the system affect the drying rate and
moisture content of the potato for this experiment. The results show that even though the
velocity of air were set at constant ad at the lowest speed during the experiment, there were
still got changes present of the drying rate and moisture content along the time. This happens
as the surrounding air affects the drying process of the potato. From this experiment, the results
obtained using batch dryer are acceptable. In addition, the results show the same pattern as the
theoretical on with the moisture content is fully removed over a period of time of the
experiment being conduct.

Table 3: Comparison Between Tray Dryers and Various Types of Batch Dyers

Types of dryers Mechanism of drying Drying times

Tray dryers Hot air passing over the surface of a wet solid that Typically, long (12
is spread over trays arranged in racks. to 48 h)
Vacuum dryers Heat is supplied by passing steam through hollow Typically, long (12
shelves. to 48 h)
Fluidized-bed A preheated stream of air enters from the bottom Faster than tray
dryers of the product container holding the product to be dryer with the
dried and fluidized it. same feed
Freeze dryers Dehydration process. The material is freeze and Faster than tray
the surrounding pressure is reduced allowing the dryer with the
frozen water in the material to sublimate directly same feed
from solid to gas phase.
Microwave High-frequency radio waves are utilized in Fast (50%
vacuum dryers microwave drying. The radiation from the bulk reduction in drying
heating causes the solvent to vaporize in the pores times compared to
of the material. vacuum drying.

However, the tray dryers seem to be less effective compared to the others by comparing
the batch tray dryer equipment with various other batch dryers. Although vacuum dryers show
the same drying rate with tray dryers, the heat required and energy consumption is much lower
within the same time period being compared to tray dryers. Therefore, as microwave vacuum
dryer reduces drying times by as much as 50 percent compared to vacuum drying, it could
similarly occur compared to tray dryers. Furthermore, the fluidized bed dryer is more efficient
because its container equipment with vertical jets of hot gasses from the uniform transfer of
thermal energy from a hot gas stream to a moisture product removed the mixture with a flashed
off method which could result in an effective drying process than tray dryers. Since freezing
dryers use dehydration process that directly involves drying itself, making the moisture content
of the item to be removed faster than tray dryers in any case. Last but not least, the potency of
a drying equipment depends on the physical and chemical properties of the drying product,
such as the moisture content and the size of the product.
CONCLUSION

As the conclusion, from the findings of the experiment was done successfully. The
objectives of this experiment are to determine the drying rate and moisture content of the
sample through removal of water, to study the effect of velocity of air on drying rate of the
sample by performing drying process, to learn how to operate the tray dryer and to compare
tray dryers with other types of batch dryers. Based on the graph and result obtained, moisture
content and drying rate decreasing over time which were consistent with the theory. The speed
of the fan is set constant in this experiment, but there are changes in velocity of air. The velocity
of air highly depends on the fan of the drying unit. In addition, tray dryer is easy to use because
of its simple design and capability to dry product at high volume. Therefore, the experiment
successfully achieves the objectives the experiments.
RECOMMENDATIONS

A few recommendations are suggested on the techniques employed during the

experiment which are student should peruse and look into additional about the experiment
before leading the experiment. This is to guarantee the students ready to direct the experiment
easily and inside the allotted time confine without confronting disarray about the subsequent
stage amid the test. Students also should plan for the information table before the experiment
to avoid any mistake or confusion and every one of the information for the experiment get the
chance to be recorded for the report.

In addition, in order to have a faster rate of drying rate, setting the fan at highest speed
and increasing the air temperature. In any case, the temperature must not be set to unreasonably
high for it might make damage or change the products. This is valid for potato, as the high
temperature will have the risk of losing original flavours or colours.

Other than that, potato must be dried enough to a lowest moisture content to avoid the
growth of micro-organisms for example bacteria and moulds. In order to ensure a complete
drying process, powered dryers may need a muslin filter over the air inlet.

Nonetheless, the drying equipment need to undergo maintenance regularly to ensure

the precision of information. Since the speed of the fan appears to experience slight changes
though have been set constant. The drying equipment should well-insulated to keep heat from
inside loss to the surroundings which can result in slower drying rate.

Lastly, students ought to wear a complete PPE for example gloves, face mask, goggles,
lab coat and covered shoes to make sure that students are safe during the entire of the
experiment.
REFERENCES

Avinash, K. (2017, November). Tray Dryer Working Principle – Tray Dryers Theory
Manufacturer – Best Pharmaceutical Equipment, Retrieved April 30, 2019, from
https://pharmawiki.in/tray-dryer-working-principle-tray-dryers-theory-manufacturer-best-
pharmaceutical-equipment/

Colak, N., & Hepbasli, A. (2007). Performance analysis of drying of green olive in a tray
dryer. Journal of Food Engineering, 80(4), 1188-1193.

Misha, S., Mat, S., Ruslan, M. H., Sopian, K., & Salleh, E. (2013). Review on the application
of a tray dryer system for agricultural products. World Applied Sciences Journal, 22(3),
424–433. https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.wasj.2013.22.03.343

Olawale, A. S., & Omole, S. O. (2012). Thin layer drying models for sweet potato in tray
dryer. Agricultural Engineering International: CIGR Journal, 14(2), 131-137.

Parikh, D. M. (2014, April 1). Solids Drying : Basic And Applications. Retrieved April 9, 2018,
from Chemical Engineering Online: http://www.chemengonline.com/solidsdrying-
basics-and-applications/?printmode=1#Figure1
APPENDICES

Figure 7: Sample of product

Figure 8: Results of experiment