Some Innovative Drying Technologies for Dehydration of Foods

Arun S. Mujumdar, Sachin V. Jangam

Mechanical Engineering Department, National University of Singapore, Blk EA, #06-15, 9 Engineering Drive 1, Singapore 117576 Tel.:+65 6516 8296, *E-mail: mpeasm@nus.edu.sg website: http://www.serve.me.nus.edu.sg/arun

ABSTRACT Thermal dehydration is the most common and cost-effective technique for preservation of foods and for the production of traditional as well as innovative processed products such as snacks with desired functionalities. This lecture will provide a global overview of emerging and innovative thermal drying technologies that are already commercialized or show potential of industrial exploitation upon successful R&D to sort out some limitations. Essentially new technologies are needed to enhance quality, reduce energy consumption, improve safety and reduce environmental impact. Mathematical modeling can be used for cost-effective development of untested novel designs to reduce the cost and time required for innovation. As examples of emerging drying technologies we will consider drying technologies with imminent commercialization potential. These include: heat-pump-assisted drying, microwave-assisted drying, low pressure superheated steam drying, pulse combustion spray drying, pulsed and ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration as well as novel gasparticle contactors such as impinging streams and pulsed fluidized beds. Multi-stage drying, intermittent drying and use of hybrid drying technologies that combine advantages of different dryers without some of their limitations will be outlined. This paper will also discuss different ways for energy minimization and potential for use of renewable energy e.g. solar, wind and biomass will also be discussed briefly.
Keywords: Advances in drying; hybrid drying techniques; pre-treatment; energy efficiency; renewable energy

INTRODUCTION All variety of foods in our day to day life needs some way of preservation for several reasons to reduce or stop spoilage, to make all variety of food available throughout a year, to maintain desired levels of nutritional properties for the longest possible time span and to make value added products. Spoilage or deterioration of food occurs during handling or due to mechanical, physical, chemical or microbial damage. Out of these, chemical and microbial damages are most frequent causes. Several chemical and enzymatic reactions can occur during processing and storage of foods. There are various ways of food preservation employed which include canning, freezing, salting, vacuum packing, preserving in syrup, food irradiation and many more. However, the dehydration by thermal means is one of the oldest and most commonly used methods of food preservation. Some loss of quality occurs during dehydration; the goal is to minimize it. Drying is the most cost-effective way to increase shelf life of food products. A range of food products are routinely preserved using dehydration, which include grains, marine products, meat products as well as all fruits and vegetables. The food products can have wide ranges of moisture content; as low as 35% in grains and as high as 90% or more in some fruits (e.g. water melon has moisture content as high as 93%) which needs to be reduced to an acceptable value so as to avoid microbial growth. This is generally represented in terms of water activity (which simply means free water available for microbial growth in solids). The limits are reported for different micro-organism in terms of water activity [1]. In addition, each food product needs to be dried in a different way using a suitable dryer type and also by use of appropriate pre and postprocessing so as to gain a satisfactory value addition to the dried product [1-3]. The pre and/or post processing steps are very important to reduce the drying load as well as to make product of a better quality. The commonly used methods for pre-treatment are osmotic dehydration, blanching, salting and soaking. Whereas post-processing such as coating, blending, packaging etc are also important after drying of foods. Selection of a drying method for a food product itself is a complex step. Traditionally food products were dried using open sun drying method. Although this is still in common use for non-commercial purposes, it was necessary to develop better way of dehydration to make products of high commercial value which

resulted in use and modification of various dryers for food applications. Use of techniques such as solar cabinet dryers, tray dryers, fluid bed dryers, vacuum freeze dryers etc has resulted in better product quality than that of open sun drying [1,3-4]. However, the processes can be made cost-effective in terms of energy consumption as well as product quality. This has resulted in need for innovation in drying of foods. Recently various advanced drying methods have been practised for food application as a result of an increased demand for high quality products for international market and to reduce the energy consumed during drying which is one of the highest of the various unit operations used in food processing industries [5]. The environmental impact has become critical in recent years. The drying systems consume huge amount of energy and hence results in high emission of green house gases as a result of massive fuel consumption. This has resulted in development of new sustainable technologies which will make use of renewable energies to reduce the harmful emissions. Recently Ratti [6] has discussed various advances in drying of foods with respect to quality, rehydration, and energy minimization. This article will start with a review of some of the conventional drying techniques used for food drying. Later the article will focus on recent advances in pretreatment and drying of food products over the last decade. PRETREATMENT PROCESSES Food products generally undergo some pre-treatment before drying with intention of some changes either physical or chemical changes which help enhance mass transport and hence the drying rate as well as quality of the dried products. There are various pretreatment methods employed which include physical or chemical treatment of foods as well as application of different energy fields to achieve the expected changes in the product to be dried. Osmotic dehydration, a commonly used pre-treatment for fruits, involves diffusion of water from food material to outside solution which is replaced by the solute from this solution [1,3]. It is a combination of dehydration and impregnation processes resulting in modified functional properties of food which are favourable for drying and result in better product quality. Recently various ideas have been employed to enhance the osmotic dehydration. The use of microwaves, pulsed electric fields, ultrasound, blanching and use of high hydrostatic pressure has resulted in enhanced osmotic dehydration rates. There are also other physical and chemical treatments used to enhance the drying, which include freezing, thawing, pinning, extrusion (to increase the surface area for drying), abrasion and drilling holes on the surface, steam/hot water blanching, SO2 treatment and use of high electric and microwave fields (Figure 1). Each one of these has been used for selective food material depending on the purpose of the pretreatment. Pretreatment processes

Physical

Chemical

Fields

Sonic Ultrasound Freezing Thawing Bruising

Dissolve was from skin (e.g. grapes) SO2 treatment

Corona discharge Microwave HF

Figure 1. Various pretreatment processes. CONVENTIONAL DRYERS FOR FOODS Selecting a precise drying system is crucial for food products as they are highly heat sensitive. A wrong selection of a drying system and/or drying conditions can also affect the physical and nutritional properties of the dried product. As discussed earlier open sun drying is used for many non-commercial applications but results in very poor properties of most dried products. The selection of a dryer for a particular food product

depends mainly on the type of feed, the amount of moisture and type of moisture, drying kinetics, heat sensitivity, physical structure of the material to be dried, quality requirements of a dried food and many other factors [1,7]. The dryers are mainly classified based on the mode of heat transfer, conduction, convection and radiation, however, the basic scrutinization of dryers is done based on the type of feed to be handled. Figure 2 lists various conventional drying methods used for food applications. The dryers in figure 2 are categorized based on the physical nature of the wet feed material to be dried. For liquid feed, spray drying is the most conventional way of drying along with the rotary drum dryers. However, drying of liquids on a bed of inert particles using convenient variant of a fluidized bed has recently be used. Spray drying is a very expensive technique to use for low value products, mainly because of the low energy efficiency. Hence, a method such as inert bed drying has been employed. For drying of particulates, there are several dryers available and the choice depends on the size, size distribution and shape of the wet feed material. The commonly used dryers for particulates are listed in Figure 2. The variants of fluidized bed dryer are preferred over the other drying systems for particulate drying as very high heat and mass transport can be achieved. However, there are still constraints because of the physical nature of the feed (such as particle size, particle size distribution) which has resulted in innovations in fluidized bed dryers for better gas-particle contact. For sheet forms or extruded foods products, the drying is mainly achieved on a belt conveyor or in a batch process by use of either conductive or radiative heat transfer. However, the pasty material is conventionally dried using indirect, rotary, paddle or drum dryers and recently by using a bed of inert particles in some variants of the fluidized bed dryer. The more expensive techniques such as freeze drying are employed mainly to produce high quality dried products for international market, however, the cost of processing is many fold higher than other convection dryers which makes it less attractive for non-commercial use of dried foods. Heat pump dryer is another technique which combines heat pump and any convective dryer to achieve faster drying with higher energy efficiency, variable drying conditions and highly improved product quality compared to normally practised convective dryers. However the details will be discussed in the next section. Conventional dryers

Liquids

Particulates

Sheets, extruded shapes

Pasty/sludge

Spray Flash/fluid bed/vibrated bed/spouted bed of inert particles Drum

Rotary Fluid beds Spouted beds Belt conveyor Moving bed column Vibrated beds Jet-zone Screw conveyor Tray Vacuum

Impingement Infrared Microwave Conduction

Indirect Rotary Paddle Fluid bed Pneumatic Drum

Figure 2. Conventional dryers for foods. ADVANCES IN DRYING SYSTEMS FOR FOODS Conventional dryers have several limitations e.g. non-uniform product quality due to over-drying/underdrying caused by long or inadequate or non-uniform exposure to the drying medium; long drying times due to low contacting efficiency between the drying medium and solids being dried; harder texture owing to case hardening of the product surface caused by over-drying etc. This gives rise to low drying performance and

high operating costs. Many studies have been carried out over the years to overcome the operational problems or difficulties of conventional dryers, as well as to improve the quality of the dried products. Most conventional dryers used in food processing operations are of the direct or convection type and utilize fossil fuels as energy source. Typically such dryers have low thermal efficiency and combustion of fossil fuels leads to greenhouse gas emissions. Use of biomass and renewable energy sources may mitigate the problems but much remains to be done to ensure wide acceptance of better drying and preservation practices. The drying technique and operating conditions selected affect the quality of the dried product. Hence in selecting a dryer- whether conventional or innovative, one must evaluate both the energetic and dried product quality performance. The same dryer can give different performance for different products. New developments in dryers and emerging drying technologies can be classified in the following categories. These categories in fact represent areas in drying technology that require improvement. However, all new developments and emerging drying technologies must be cost-effective. This is needed to ensure market acceptance [7]. New technologies are needed principally due to following considerations: Drying of new products and/or processes Higher thermal efficiency and capacities than current technology permits Better quality and quality control than currently feasible Reduced environmental impact, use of renewable energy Reduced fire, explosion, toxic hazards, safer operation Better efficiency (resulting in lower cost) Lower cost (operating, maintenance cost and capital) Shorter processing time while maintaining high product quality Some of the areas (including limitations) which need R&D have been addressed by researchers in recent years. Table 1 briefs some of the innovative modifications of conventional dryers for better performance. Significant improvements as well as advancement have been made over the past few years which lead to the new developments in drying that are briefly discussed in the following sections. Some general attributes of the dryers developed recently include: Multimode heat input concurrently or sequentially to match instantaneous (for batch) or local (for continuous) drying kinetics without adverse effect on product quality, e.g. convection followed by or simultaneously with conduction, radiation, or microwave heat input Time-dependent heat input for batch drying to match drying kinetics with heat input Superheated steam as drying medium at high, atmospheric or sub-atmospheric pressure Low temperature dehumidified air as drying medium at modified atmosphere which eliminate existence of oxygen Multi-stage drying and hybrid drying that combine different type of dryers or different types of heat input, e.g. MW-vacuum drying, spray drying followed by fluid bed/vibrated bed as second and/or third stage Use of absorbent to remove water vapor as it is generated to maintain high driving force for mass transfer even at lower temperatures. Adsorbents must be edible for food applications for human as well as animal consumption. Table 1. Some selected innovative changes in conventional dryers. Type Rotary Nauta Dryers Spray Dryer Variants Internal heat exchanger coils Axial flow replaced by jets of hot air injection into rolling bed Planetary mixer; vacuum; heated jacket + microwave heating Horizontal spray dryer Various spray chambers/atomizer Cylinder-on-parabolic cone chamber to minimize wall deposits Nano-spray dryer; ink-jet technology to generate spray Pulsed flows Intermittent, local fluidization/spouting Mechanical agitation Conductive heat transfer (internal heat exchangers), jacket heating

Fluid Bed/Spouted Bed Dryers

Improved gas distribution system Gas for fluidization/spouting (Air, superheated steam, combustion gas)

Heat pump-assisted drying and advances Heat pump dryers use low temperature dehumidified air as the convective drying medium. Hence, drying in heat pump dryer can be carried out at relative low temperature as compared to conventional hot air dryers. This drying system incorporates a dehumidification cycle, where condensation of water allows the removal of water from the closed system of drying air circulation. A heat pump is used to perform dehumidification and heating of the process air, although auxiliary heater is generally used for better control of the temperature at dryer inlet [8,9]. The heat pump recovers the sensible and latent heats by condensing moisture from the drying air. The recovered heat is recycled back to the dryer through heating of the dehumidified drying air hence the energy efficiency is increased substantially as a result of heat recovery which otherwise is lost to the atmosphere in conventional dryers. The possibility of wide range of operating conditions (air temperature, humidity) can be used to make a better quality product. The closed system of heat pump is very useful for retention of volatile components of the foods to be dried which otherwise are lost using the common convective dryers [9]. Although the heat pump system offer a simple way of increasing the energy efficiency of the drying systems, there exists tremendous scope for the improvement of HPD performance in one way or the other and also to reduce the environmental impact which is one of the limitations of conventional heat pumps. Figure 3 shows different ways for enhancing the performance of heat pump dryers. The mechanical compression heat pump system is the most common however suffers a limitation of lower coefficient of performance (COP), a measure of the efficiency of heat pump system. The performance of heat pumps has been enhanced by various ways such as use of multiple heat pumps, cascade heat pumps, heat pipes for enhancing the COP, absorption refrigeration, chemical heat pump and others. Amongst these, chemical heat pump (CHP) system has tremendous potential for high temperature application [10]. The chemical heat pump stores or absorbs thermal energy in the exhaust from convective dryers, solar energy or geothermal energy in the form of chemical energy via endothermic reactions in specially designed reactors and rejects heat at a desired level via exothermic reactions [11]. CHPs operate using thermal energy from the heat source and do not release any gases which may have environmental impact. The advances in chemical heat pump involve mainly developing new chemical reactions for wider temperature range applications and less environmental impact. The chemical heat pump system has also been used along with solar energy [12]. Several heating modes have been used along with convective heating during heat pump drying which includes microwave, infrared, RF and solar energy individually or simultaneously. This is mainly done to enhance the drying rates, particularly during final stages of drying. Solar-assisted heat pump dryer has tremendous challenge to make the system more sustainable. The solar energy is used for auxiliary heating either by direct heat transfer to the dehumidified air or using the stored solar energy in a phase change material [12]. Daghigh et al. [12] have reviewed the application of solar assisted heat pump drying technique for agricultural and marine products. Hawlader et al. [13] have also reported a complex solar assisted heat pump drying system which uses the solar energy for both heating of refrigerant in an evaporator as well as heating of the drying air. Mujumdar [14] proposed application of intermittent drying to heat pump drying some twenty years ago to save operating cost and also capital cost since it allows use of a lower capacity heat pump or use of a single heat pump to service several drying chambers, This strategy is currently under active research and development at several laboratories. Furthermore, it is possible to use a smaller heat pump to service two or more drying chambers in cyclical mode, which may dry the same or different products in different chambers [7,15] have presented the effect of different temperature-time profiles on the quality of agricultural products in a tunnel HPD. Various profiles are possible, e.g. cyclic temperature, step-down temperature, cyclic pressure, variable gas flow and etc [16]. Atmospheric temperature freeze drying is another application of heat pumps. A lot of research was then carried out in the field of atmospheric freeze drying of food, pharmaceutical and biological products and recently Claussen et al. [17] have critically reviewed the concept of atmospheric freeze drying and the recent developments. Heat pump system can be efficiently used to carry out AFD using air at very low temperature, below the freezing point (generally between -3 to -10C). The process is very similar to the common heat pump drying except the air is cooled to very low temperature before using it for drying. Continuous production line is a key factor for the

development of such technique and the first continuous plant for drying of vegetables was started in 2005 in Hungary, designed by a Norwegian company. This technique has been successfully applied for various food products such as green peas, red chilli, sweet corn and others [17-21]. Heat pump dryers New developments

Heat pump system

External heating mode

Drying gas

Operating modes

Multi-stage Cascade Chemical heat pump Absorption heat pump Heat pipe

Infrared Microwave RF Solar Multi-mode Solar with phase change materials

Superheated steam Inert gas (N2, CO2)

Continuous Intermittent Time varying drying cycle

Figure 3. Improvements in heat pump dryers. Intermittent batch drying By varying the airflow rate, temperature, humidity or operating pressure individually or in tandem, operating condition of a drying process can be monitored in order to reduce the operating cost e.g. thermal input and power input. The objective is to obtain high energy efficiency without subjecting the product beyond its permissible temperature limit and stress limit while maintaining high moisture removal rate. There are two ways in applying intermittent heat input profiles. The first one is to subject the drying materials to intermittent heat input, time-varying flow of drying medium or use of cyclically varying operating pressure in the drying chamber. The main purpose is to allow internal moisture to migrate to the material surface during non-active phase of drying, often termed the tempering period. Intermittent drying consists of two distinctive drying periods, namely, active drying and non-active drying. During active drying, heat input is applied by the drying medium, while during the non-active drying period, heat input or flow of the drying medium is stopped. The two distinctive periods are carried out in an intermittent mode. Since water content on the surface is increased during the tempering period, the drying rate during the subsequent active drying is increased noticeably which helps enhances the drying kinetics. However, since the rate of drying is finite during the passive period the overall drying time is increased somewhat but it is offset by the reduction in energy consumed and the better product quality due to lower product temperature. Islam et al. [22] have carried out numerical study of the time varying heat input in convective dryers and suggested various routes to enhance the drying. The second intermittent drying strategy is to apply stepwise change of operating conditions in order to minimize energy requirement. This is due to the fact that drying towards the end of the process is controlled by internal diffusion where the external factors have limited effect on the drying kinetics. As such, one possible way to reduce energy loss is to gradually reduce the heat input to the materials along the drying process. One can also vary the mode of heat input (e.g. convection, conduction, radiation or microwave/radio frequency heating). Multiple heat inputs can be used to remove both surface and internal moisture simultaneously. Intermittent drying can be applied to any direct dryer and batch dryer such as tray dryer, convective dryer, conveyor dryer, fluidized bed dryer, spouted bed dryer, etc. [14] has identified and proposed for the first time the use of multiple modes of variable levels of heat input, simultaneous or consecutive, as well as cyclical

variations in velocity or operating pressure as technologies of the future for batch and continuous heat pump drying processes. Using multiple modes of heat input, it is possible to speed up drying kinetics without adversely affecting the quality of dried products. Dryers such as rotary, spouted bed or the multi-cylinder paper dryer are all inherently intermittent since heat is supplied intermittently due to the inherent operational mode of the dryer although none of the operating variable such as flow rate, temperature or pressure is altered with time. They are still not termed intermittent since the on and off times of heat input cannot be altered independently of the other operating variables. Hybrid drying techniques Hybrid drying techniques have become popular recently because of flexibility of drying operation. The hybrid drying techniques may include either use of more than one dryer for drying of a particular product (multi-stage drying), use of more than one mode of heat transfer, various ways of heat transfer or multiprocessing dryers. The multi-stage drying is highly accepted way of enhancing the drying performance. Figure 4 describes various multi-stage drying options for various feed properties. For particulate drying, either variants of fluid bed or fluid bed with some other technique can be used in series to achieve faster drying. However for liquid feedstock generally spray drying is followed by the fluid bed dryer to reduce moisture content to an acceptable level which is not possible by spray dryer alone [5]. Some hybrid dryers

Particulate, Granular products

Liquid/paste

Sheets

Flash + Fluid bed Fluid bed + Packed bed Vacuum + MW Well-mixed fluid bed + Plug flow fluid bed dryer Conventional dryer + Vacuum frying

Spray + Fluid bed Spouted bed or fluid bed of inert particles

Impingement + IR radiation

Figure 4. Some hybrid dryers for foods. Microwave drying offers advantages in enhancing drying kinetics, precise control, fast start-up and shutdown times, quality of dried product, smaller footprint of equipment, etc. Infrared drying is also useful to remove the final traces of moisture at a faster rate. These techniques are typically combined with other drying methods to overcome the limitations of uneven heating resulted from focusing, corner and edge heating, inhomogeneous electromagnetic field, and irregular shape and non-uniform composition of material. However, the start-up costs for these techniques are relatively high and it requires sophisticated mechanical and electronic components [23]. Microwave vacuum drying has been shown to produce dried products with improved texture and color. Microwave field allows volumetric heating whereby heat is transferred to the inner core of material without the need of a temperature gradient even in the initial stage of drying. Combination of microwave and vacuum drying results in improved color and texture of dried products over air-dried products. Reduction of drying times in microwave is beneficial for color, porosity, aroma, shrinkage and rehydration. The microwave assisted freeze drying is another recently used hybrid technique for various food products. The use of MW-freeze drying results in much faster rates with very high product quality. Recent review by Zhang et al. [24] explains in detail the advances in microwave-assisted drying of vegetables, fruits and aquatic products with a focus on drying kinetics and the product quality. The method

has already been applied for numerous food products to prepare new age snack food. Woo and Mujumdar [25] have reviewed application of electric and magnetic field in freezing and its effect on freeze drying. Spray freeze drying is another hybrid drying technique used to prepare highly porous particles. The techniques involve spraying of liquid in a liquid nitrogen atmosphere and then freeze drying the frozen droplets. However, this technique is more common in pharmaceutical applications. Modified atmosphere drying As discussed earlier, the most common drying methods employed for food dehydration use hot air as the drying medium. In convective air drying most of the food products undergo quality degradation due to various unwanted physical and chemical changes occurring during the drying. Most common are the browning reaction and shrinkage of the products due to case hardening [7,26]. Browning can be due to enzymatic or non-enzymatic reactions. The most common enzyme present in fruits and vegetables is polyphenol oxidase causing such unwanted quality effects. The presence of oxygen results in various unwanted characteristics in dried food materials. To avoid oxidation of the drying material and destruction of its bio-active ingredients, hot drying air, which contains 21% of oxygen, can be replaced with nitrogen or carbon dioxide. By eliminating oxygen, oxidation and some undesirable reactions which require oxygen are thus avoided. This in turn reduces/eliminates browning of products and improves retention of bio-active ingredients. In addition, modified atmosphere heat pump drying reportedly increases the effective diffusivities of some food products. Perera [26] and ONeill et al. [27] have discussed the application of modified atmosphere drying for some food products using a heat pump. A number of experimental studies have been carried out on modified heat pump drying on various types of food products and have shown great enhancement of product quality [28-30]. Superheated steam drying Superheated steam is an attractive drying medium for some processes since the net energy consumption can be minimized if the exhaust (also superheated steam) can be utilized elsewhere in the plant and hence is not charged to the dryer. Superheated steam does not contain oxygen, hence oxidative or combustion reactions are avoided. In addition, it also eliminates the risk of fire and explosion hazard. The quality of superheated steam-dried products tends to be better than that from conventional hot air dryer. Superheated steam also allows pasteurization, sterilization and deodorization of food products. This is particularly important for food and pharmaceutical products that require a high standard of hygienic processing. In addition, superheated steam drying can also gives higher drying rates in both constant and falling rate periods under certain conditions. Closed system superheated steam drying enables emitted odors, dust or other hazardous components to be contained and thus mitigate the risks of these hazards. The pollutants are concentrated in the condensate of the effluent steam. On the other hand, desirable organic compounds can also be contained using the superheated steam drying method. Mujumdar has discussed the principles, advantages and limitations as well as diverse applications of superheated steam drying technologies in a number of papers and books [31-34], including the Handbook of Industrial Drying [7]. Some products are not stable at 100C if the dryer operates at atmospheric pressure, then one option is to lower the operating pressure. Indeed, silk cocoons and many fruit and vegetable products have been successfully dried in low pressure superheated steam dryers. Since the heat transfer for drying is still by convection, the drying rates are very low at low steam pressures. Although one can obtain good quality at low pressures, the process is still not popular due to large equipment size caused by low drying rates. Perhaps it is necessary to include supplementary heat sources e.g. MW, radiation or conduction, to speed up drying rates at low steam pressures. Much R&D is needed in this area. As energy cost rise and legislation on carbon emissions become stringent, superheated steam drying will be more attractive. Impinging stream drying Impinging stream dryers are novel alternatives to flash dryers for particulate materials with very high drying loads [35,36]. Nevertheless, studies on ISD are still partial or limited to very few applications. In these type of dryers the intensive collision of opposed streams creates a zone that offers very huge heat, mass and momentum transfer [37]. Hence rapid removal of surface moisture is possible. Other advantages of

impinging dryers are smaller foot prints and high robustness due to absence of any moving part. However, the design of such system is very important particularly the feeding arrangement and the design of the impinging pipes affect the value of volumetric heat transfer coefficient and in turn the water evaporation rate. Recently, Choicharoen et al. [37] have carried out performance evaluation of impinging dryer with Okara as a ideal material and concluded that ISD gives very high volumetric heat transfer coefficient and the performance depends on the aforementioned parameters. All these advantages of ISD allows one to consider it as a possible option for drying LRC provided it can handle huge throughputs which can be a main limitation. Another limitation could be the scale of velocities used. Contact sorption drying The contact-sorption drying can be achieved by two ways, either by contact of a wet material with heated inert particles and there by the moisture removal as a result of heat exchange or by contact of wet material with heated sorbent particles where the moisture is transferred from wet solids to the sorbent particles to achieve the drying. The efficiency of drying can be enhanced by use of adsorbents such as Zeolites which have strong attraction towards water. A typical contact-sorption drying technique involves good mixing of wet solid particles with the sorbent particles to achieve the heat and mass transfer and then separation of these two media. The sorbent particles are regenerated and returned back to the dryer. The typical inert sorbent particles (also called as carrier) used for this purposes are molecular sieves, zeolites, activated carbon, silica gel. The typical applications of contact-sorbent drying are the drying of various grains and pieces of fruits. The fruit pieces can also be dried in presence of sugar granules which will absorb moisture from the wet solids and will also result in sweeter taste. Kudra and Mujumdar [5] have discussed in more detail about the contact-sorption drying system. Rahman and Mujumdar [38] have proposed atmospheric freeze drying for foods in a vibro-fluidized bed dryer of adsorbent particles. This resulted in reduced drying time and enhanced product quality. These adsorbents can also be used for dehumidification of air to be used for drying. The system consist of two beds of sorbent particles one which is in desiccation mode (to remove water from drying air) and the other one in regeneration mode. As noted earlier adsorbents must be edible, stable, easy to regenerate for drying of foods. Use of renewable energy It must be pointed out that use of renewable energies e.g. solar and wind, should be looked at seriously as current concerns over potential energy shortage and global climate change will likely result in legislative actions to minimize fossil fuel usage. A solar drying system, particularly for agro-products and marine products is viable already particularly in developing countries where labour costs are low and cost of fossil fuel energy is very high. In future, larger systems could be designed utilizing solar thermal, photo-voltaic panels combined with wind power. As solar and wind energy is necessarily intermittent, advances in thermal and electrical energy storage are needed to make use of renewable energy viable in drying. To minimize use of oil or gas, one could use biomass to provide back-up heating in the absence of insolation and wind. Use of thermal energy storage in water pools, pebble beds and/or in phase change materials can be coupled with the use of intermittent energy sources like solar and wind energy. Much R&D is needed at the systems level to make this concept commercially viable. The main research and development is needed to fabricate efficient solar collection system, better air circulation in solar dryers, use of appropriate biomass as a supplementary option, use of wind energy for drying (either for heating or pumping of drying air) where ever possible. Since all renewable energy sources are intermittent it is necessary to provide backup heat or heat storage during day (for solar energy) using possibly phase change material (PCM) heat store exchangers. CONCLUSION A brief overview of the application of drying in food processing is presented for both conventional and emerging drying technologies. Kudra and Mujumdar [5] have presented comprehensive treatment of new drying concepts at various stages of development. As energy costs sore, energy efficiency will be key criterion for marketing of dryers. Much R&D needs to be done to make some of the new concepts commercially attractive. REFERENCES

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