Energy 53 (2013) 67e73

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Optimum biomass drying for combustion e A modeling approach

Tesfaldet Gebreegziabher a, Adetoyese Olajire Oyedun b, Chi Wai Hui b, *
a
Department of Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong
b
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong

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

Article history: Drying biomass as fuel in a combustion process can increase the combustion efciency, reduce pollution
Received 21 August 2012 and improve operation. On the other hand, drying biomass is an expensive process that requires huge
Received in revised form capital investment and energy input. The difculty of removing moisture from biomass is affected by
27 February 2013
many factors such as the moisture content and the size of the solid particles. The level of drying is
Accepted 2 March 2013
Available online 27 March 2013
therefore a very important parameter, which strongly inuences the economies of the utilization of
biofuel. This study utilizes a mathematical model that incorporates material and energy balances, heat
transfer and drying kinetics to determine the optimum drying level of biomass. Drying kinetic based
Keywords:
Biomass drying
upon the Ficks second law of diffusion is used in the model to determine the energy and capital ex-
Combustion penditures for the drying process. Case studies of wood chips drying are presented to demonstrate how
Drying kinetics the thickness of wood chips affects the optimal drying intensity and the overall economics of the process.
Modeling 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Optimization

1. Introduction
Using biomass as a renewable energy source is attracting more
and more attention nowadays due to the concerns of global
warming and the worry of fossil fuel depletion. However, not all the
biomass is suitable for direct combustion except when properly
dried.
In the old days, biomass such as woods or rice straws was dried
naturally before they were burned. Recently, due to the high-
energy cost and environmental concerns, some organic wastes
with high moisture contents such as empty fruit brunch (EFB),
sludge or microalgae are being used as fuel. These highly moist
biomasses have to be mechanically and/or thermally dried before
they can be burnt. Evidence has shown, drying biofuel prior to
combustion can increase boiler efciency, lower air emissions and
improve boiler operation [1].
High moisture content reduces the combustion temperature
causing incomplete combustion and undesirable reaction products.
In addition, a biofuel with high moisture content requires a large
amount of auxiliary fuel to make it combustible [2]. Some data on
how moisture content affects the boiler efciency and other key
combustion parameters such as ame temperature were reported
by Voima et al. [3].
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 852 2358 7137; fax: 852 2358 0054.
E-mail addresses: tgaa@ust.hk (T. Gebreegziabher), keoyedun@ust.hk
(A.O. Oyedun), kehui@ust.hk (C.W. Hui).
Most of the latest biomass power plants are integrated with
drying facilities. Depending on the drying technology and the
properties of the biomass, the drying time could be as long as a
month [4] by using hot air or as short as a couple minutes with high
temperature ue gas [5]. While biomass with moisture levels of
55e65 wt% can sustain combustion, the optimum moisture content
is 10e15 wt% [6]. Brammer et al. showed the importance of drying
of biomass for small-to-medium scale biomass gasication plants
for the production of heat and power, and veried that high levels
of moisture content within feedstock not only lowers the perfor-
mance of the system but also deteriorates the quality of the product
gas [7].
The performance of a combustion process can be enhanced by
the removal of moisture from the feedstock. Three different drying
methods namely steam drying, ue gas drying and vacuum drying
were studied by Andersson et al. [8] in a process where the drying
and pelletizing of biofuel is integrated to pulp mill. Their study
showed the possibility of energy recovery and reduction in CO2
emissions compared to stand-alone pellets production. So far the
drying of biomass feedstock before combustion processes offers a
lot of potential benets related to increased boiler efciency and
lower ue gas emissions. The potential benets of the drying
operation are achieved at a cost as drying is an energy and capital
intensive process. The energy cost of the drying process can be
reduced by utilizing low-grade waste heat [9] but at the same time
increasing the size of dryer makes it too bulky and expensive. Le
Lostec et al. suggested that heat recovery systems are the most
energy efcient and economical solutions for drying wood chips,

0360-5442/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2013.03.004
68 T. Gebreegziabher et al. / Energy 53 (2013) 67e73
and absorption heat pumps can be used economically when the set
point temperature of the drying air is below 60  C [10].
In the literature, discussions on how the optimum level can be
achieved are rare. The trade-off between the drying level, dryer
costs, energy inputs and boiler efciency is seldom explicitly
studied. The purpose of this paper is to perform this trade-off using
a mathematical model. The model can determine the operating
conditions such as the drying temperature, with the consideration
of the size of the biomass feedstock.
In this work, a simplied biomass drying plant, as shown in
Fig. 1, is used to illustrate how the drying level of biomass can be
optimized and how it affect the protability of the overall process.
In this process, steam is used to heat up the air stream to a tem-
perature Ta,2 before entering a hot air dryer (HAD). Wood chips or
sawdust and hot air are mixed and leave the dryer at temperature
Ta,3. The objective is to design and optimize the drying process, by
taking into account the product value (reected by the lower
heating value of the dried wood chips), operating cost (the steam
cost used for preheating the air) and capital investment of the HAD
and the steam heater. To do this, material and energy balance
models of the air heater and the dryer are developed. The sizes and
costs of these two processing units are also estimated.
2. Problem description
A drying process was designed to process 5000 kg/h of poplar
sawdust from 50 wt% moisture to a lower moisture level of less
than 20 wt% at which it have suitable lower heating value (LHV) for
combustion. The process ow diagram of this process is shown in
Fig. 1. In this process, air is preheated by steam and contact with
poplar sawdust inside a hot air dryer. The hot air and sawdust are
well mixed inside the direct rotary dryer and the moisture evapo-
rated from the poplar sawdust is removed with the exhaust air. The
lower heating value of wood represents the amount of heat that can
be extracted from its combustion and was converted into monetary
value in this study. The lower heating value (LHVs) of moist wood
can be estimated by subtracting the enthalpy of the water vapor in
the ue gas from the LHV of dry wood (LHVds). We assume values
for heating value of dry wood (LHVds) is at 18,648 kJ/kg [11], specic
heat of water vapor (CPv) as 1.89 kJ/kg  C, the latent heat of water
(LHw) as 2700 kJ/kg. The reference temperature (Tref) as 25  C and
the ue gas temperature (Tex) leaving the furnace at 200  C. The
LHVs of moist woods at different moisture content (x) is estimated
with Eq. (1) and plotted in Fig. 2.
h  i
LHVs LHVds 1  X3  Tex  Tref CPv LHw X3 (1)
By substituting the values of LHVds, CPv, Tex and Tref, Eq. (1) can
be reduced to
Fig. 1. Process ow diagram of the drying process.
LHVs 18; 648  210X3 (2)
where LHVs: is the lower heating value of moist wood (kJ/kg) and
X3: is the moisture content of dried wood (wt%)
This estimation is very close to the data provided by EUBIA [11].
In Fig. 2, when moisture content is as high as 90%, the combustion
of wood in theory will not generate any heat value because the high
moisture content makes the wood non-combustible. Some indus-
trial boilers restrict the minimum heating value of biofuel to be
above 15,000 kJ/kg (which is around 17 wt% of moisture content in
Fig. 2) to guarantee the quality (e.g. ame temperature) of the
combustion [12]. However, if auxiliary fuel such as coal is added to
the combustion, burning biofuel at higher moisture content is
feasible.
3. Process models
The process shown in Fig. 1 consists of two processing units,
namely an air heater and a hot air dryer. Material and energy bal-
ance models of these units are discussed below.
3.1. Air heater
Enthalpy value of an air stream:
The enthalpy of air, Ha,i (kJ/kg) can be calculated by Eq. (3) when
the air temperature Ta,i, and moisture ratio Yi (kg/kg dry base (dB))
are known.
     
Ha;i Cpda Ta;i  Tref Yi Cpv  Ta;i  Tref LH (3)
Eq. (3) assumes the specic heat of dry air (Cpda) and the specic
heat of water vapor (Cpv) are constant for the given temperature
range and the latent heat of water (LH) is xed at 2270 kJ/kg. The
moisture ratio Yi can be calculated by making use of the psycho-
metric relations as in Eqs. (4)e(6).
Pws;i e77:34500:005Ta;i 7235=Ta;i =Ta;i
8:2
(4)
Pwi RHi  Pws;i (5)
Pa
Yi 0:62198 (6)
Pa  Pwi
Pws,i and Pwi are the saturated vapor pressure and the actual
water vapor pressure of i-th air stream respectively and Pa is the
atmospheric pressure.
On the other side of the air heater, low pressure steam (LP) is
used to provide heat to the air stream. Assuming the temperature
(TLP) and latent heat (LHLP) of steam is 120  C and 1999 kJ/kg
 T. Gebreegziabher et al. / Energy 53 (2013) 67e73 69

Ws X2  X3 WG Y3  Y2 (12)

   
Ws Hs;3  Hs;2 Ws X3 Hw;3  X2 Hw;2
   
WG Hda;2  Hda;3 WG Y3 Hv;3  Y2 Hv;2 (13)

   
Hs;3  Hs;2 Cpdw Ts;3  Ts;2 (14)

 
Hw;3 Cpw Ts;3  Tref (15)

 
Hw;2 Cpw Ts;2  Tref (16)

   
Hda;2  Hda;3 Cpda Ta;2  Ta;3 (17)

Fig. 2. LHVs versus moisture content of wood [11.]  

Hv;3 Cpv Ta;3  Tref LH (18)
respectively, since only the latent heat of the LP is used, the steam
temperature at the air heater remains constant at 120  C. The heat
 
Hv;2 Cpv Ta;2  Tref LH (19)
requirement, Qhtr (kJ/h), of the heater is calculated using Eq. (7) by
making use of air ow rate, Wa (kg/h) and enthalpy of air.
  Ta;3  Ts;3 DT (20)
Qhtr Wa Ha;2  Ha;1 (7)
Eq. (12) describes the moisture balance. Eqs. (13)e(19) describe
With the Qhtr calculated by Eq. (7), the ow rate of LP, WLP (kg/h), the energy balance among the inlet and outlet streams. The specic
is calculated by Eq. (8) heat values of the dry air, solid, water and water vapor are assumed
to be constant within the dryer and the reference temperature is set
Qhtr
WLP (8) at 25  C. In most hot air dryers, the outlet temperature of the solid
LHLP
stream Ts,3 is a few degrees lower than the exhaust temperature of
the air stream Ta,3. In this model, a small temperature difference
3.1.1. Sizing of the air heater (DT) of 5  C is imposed between the two outlet streams as stated in
Assuming the heat exchanger is an ideal counter current heat Eq. (20).
exchanger, the sizing of heat exchanger can be estimated by the The dryer model can be solved by assuming the exhaust tem-
following equation. perature of the air stream (Ta,3); the solid temperature (Ts,3) can be
estimated using Eq. (20). The moisture content of the solid at the
Qhtr outlet X3 is determined by the drying kinetics. Once X3 is deter-
A (9)
LMTD  U mined, Y3 can be calculated by Eq. (12) and so on. The convergence
of the model has to be done iteratively by varying the ow rate and
where A (m2) is the overall heat transfer area, U (W/m2  C) is the
the outlet temperature of the air stream.
overall heat transfer coefcient and was assumed to be 10 W/m2  C
in this study [13]. The log mean temperature difference, LMTD ( C)
3.2.1. Drying kinetics
of the heat transfer is dened as;
Detailed understanding of the drying kinetics can help to
       determine the level of drying and the size of the dryer. Though
LMTD TS  Ta;1  TS  Ta;2 ln TS  Ta;1 TS  Ta;2
there are different drying kinetics models for solids, the Ficks
(10) model of diffusion is often used for predicting the behavior of
For an optimization problem where the air temperatures are moisture removal [15e17]. The assumption of drying model using
unknown, the use of Eq. (10) for LMTD often encounters numerical Ficks second law is that drying process is mass transfer limited and
error while searching for air temperature. Therefore to avoid this the drying temperature remains constant during drying. The
numerical problem, Eq. (11) is often used to approximate the LMTD effective moisture diffusivity (Deff), the Arrhenius factor (Do) and
value [14] . the activation energy (Ea)are three parameters of this drying ki-
netics model. While using the Ficks diffusion equation for
 h  0:3275  0:3275 i 3:05344 modeling drying processes, a moisture ratio(MR) that relates the
LMTD 1=2 TS  Ta;1 TS  Ta;2
gradient of the sample moisture content (X) to both initial (Xo) and
(11) equilibrium (Xe) moisture contents is dened in Eq. (21) [15e17].

X  Xe
3.2. Dryer model MR (21)
Xo  Xe
In the hot air dryer, the solid contacts hot air directly. Heat is The diffusion equation for which the diffusion potential is the
transferred from the hot air to the solid and moisture that is carried moisture content, MR and under the assumption of negligible
by the solid is vaporized. The evaporation takes away a signicant shrinkage can be expressed using Ficks second law as in Eq. (22).
amount of heat that is transferred to the solid. The dryer is
continuously fed and is assumed to be in steady state. Eqs. (12)e vMR h i
V Deff VMR (22)
(20) describe material and energy balances of the hot air dryer. vt
70 T. Gebreegziabher et al. / Energy 53 (2013) 67e73

The general solution of the above equation is in the form of The equilibrium moisture contents Xe at different drying tem-
Eq. (23). peratures are regressed from the drying data as in Eq. (29).
!
Xe 60:92  0:165 T (29)
8 X
N
1 2n 12 p2 Deff
MR exp  t (23)
p2 n1 2n 1 2 4L2 A zero or a very small value of MR could cause numerical error
when logarithmic value of MR is calculated. To avoid MR from
where n is a positive integer, t is the drying time (s) and L is the half acquiring a value of zero at the end of the experiment, a small
thickness of the sample (m) and Deff is the effective moisture number is added to the numerator. Eq. (21) is modied to Eq. (30) to
diffusivity (m2 s1). For a very long drying time the rst term of the make it more suitable for an optimization problem.
expansion can be used to predict MR. Hence,
X  Xe 0:0000001
" # MR (30)
Xo  Xe
8 p2 D eff t
MR exp  (24)
p2 4L2 The dependent variable in the simplied Ficks equation, i.e the
moisture ratio, MR, was extracted from the drying data of Fig. 3 and
And it follows that, is plotted in Fig. 4.
  To obtain the slope (k) of Eq. (26), ln (MR) is plotted against the
8 drying time (t) and is shown in Fig. 5. The curves at different drying
ln MR ln  kt (25)
p2 temperatures show constant slope except when the maximum
temperature is reached (i.e., equilibrium is approached). The nal
p2 Deff point was not included in the regression because in a practical
k (26) design the nal moisture content should not be too close to its
4L2
equilibrium value to avoid high energy and capital investment.
The effective diffusion coefcient is typically determined from With the k values (the slopes) regressed from Fig. 5, the Deff
the slope (k) of the experimental data plot of ln (MR) versus drying values can be calculated using Eq. (26). To do this, the value of L in
time (t) as in Eq. (25). The temperature dependency of the diffu- meters has to be known. For the optimization problem a linear
sivity can be represented by an Arrhenius model as in Eq. (27). equation of Deff as function of temperature, T (K), was obtained as
  shown in Eq. (31) from the set of drying data provided by Chen et al.
Ea [15].
Deff Do exp (27)
RT  
1 1
ln Deff 14:716  2045:41=T (31)
where R is the universal gas constant (8.314 J mol K ), Ea is the
activation energy (kJ mol1), Do is the Arrhenius factor (m2 s1) and Based on the dryer model, once the drying temperature is given,
T is the absolute temperature in Kelvin. Both kinetic parameters Ea the corresponding Deff value can be estimated by Eq. (31). If we
and Do can be estimated from the curve of Deff versus 1/T of the assume the solid and air are well mixed inside the dryer, the drying
natural logarithmic form of Eq. (28). temperature will be equal to the outlet temperature of the solid
(Ts,3). With the Deff together with the thickness of the solid (L) and a
Ea 1 drying time, the moisture ratio (MR) at the outlet of the dryer can
ln Deff ln Do  (28)
R T be determined using Eq. (24).
One possible method of determining the parameters in Eqs.
(24)e(28) is by making use of experimental drying data. A set of 3.3. The air heater cost
drying data of poplar sawdust obtained by Chen et al. [15] is used in
this study. The moisture content data of the sample as function of Once the area of the heat exchanger is known, Eq. (32) is used to
time at various drying temperature is given in Fig. 3. estimate the heat exchanger cost, Chtr ($/yr).

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
Moisture Ratio

0.6 60C
0.5 70C
0.4 80C
0.3 90C
0.2
0.1
0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Drying Time (sec)

Fig. 3. Drying curves of poplar sawdust at different drying temperatures [15]. Fig. 4. Moisture ratio versus time of poplar sawdust.
 T. Gebreegziabher et al. / Energy 53 (2013) 67e73 71

Table 1
Design parameters.

Parameters Value
Feed rate of wood chips, Ws,1 (kg/h) 5000
Moisture ratio of the wood feed, X1 1
Temperature of the wood feed, Ts,2 ( C) 25
Pressure of the air feed, Pa,1 1 atm or 101,325 Pa
Temperature of the air feed, Ta,1 ( C) 25
Relative humidity of the air feed, RH1 (%) 50
Temperature difference of air and solid 5
at the dryer outlet, DT ( C)
Air heater cost, Chtr ($/yr) 500 100 A0.8
Dryer cost , Cdyr ($/yr) 5000 5000 V0.6
Steam cost, CLP ($/kW) 0.1
Heat value of wood ($/kW) 0.05
Specic heat of air, Cpda (kJ/kg-C) 1.006
Specic heat of wood, Cpds (kJ/kg) 1.2566
Fig. 5. ln (MR) vs drying time of poplar sawdust. Specic heat of water vapor, Cpv (kJ/kg-C) 1.89
Specic heat of water, Cpw (kJ/kg-C) 4.186
Latent heat of water, LHw (kJ/kg-C) 2270
Latent heat of LP steam, LHLP (kJ/kg) 1999
Chtr ahtr bhtr Achtr (32) Size of the wood, L (m) 0.0005
Annual operation time, top (h) 2000

3.4. The dryer cost

The equipment cost of the dryer is affected by the volume of the

dryer. The volume of the dryer is assumed to be the sum of the Table 2
volume of the solid and 85% of it as free space for the air ow. Results of the solid streams.

Assuming the density of the moist wood (rs) is 500 kg/m3, and no Wood feed Dried wood
shrinkage of the wood occurs during the drying process, the vol- Wood temperature, Ts ( C) 25 37
ume of the wood inside the dryer Vs (m3) for the feed rate of wood Flow rate of wood, Ws (kg/h) 5000 3025
at 5000 kg/h is given as Moisture content, x (wt%) 50 17
Moisture ratio, MR 1 0.21
  Flow rate of dry wood, Wds (kg/h) 2500 2500
5000
Vs t 3600 (33) Flow rate of moisture, Ww (kg/h) 2500 525
500 Enthalpy of dry wood (kJ/h) 78,538 95,042
Enthalpy of moisture (kJ/h) 261,625 66,498
Assuming the dryer has 85% space for the air ow and 15% for Enthalpy of moist wood (kJ/h) 340,163 161,540
the solid ow, the volume of the dryer becomes:

Vs
Vdyr (34)
0:15
Accordingly, the dryer cost was calculated by Eq. (35).
Table 3
 cdyr
Results of costs and annual prot.
Cdyr adyr bdyr Vdyr (35)
Heat exchanger
Air temperature, Ta,2 ( C) 62
3.5. Operating cost (steam cost) Log mean DT 75
U (W/m2 K) 10
In this study, we consider steam cost as the only operating cost. Q (kJ/h) 6,436,135
Other operating costs such as powering the blower, pumps, etc., are Q (kW) 1788
Area (m2) 2383
neglected. Hence the operating cost related with steam consump- Heat exchanger cost ($/yr) 50,821
tion for yearly operation time (top) in hours can be calculated as in Energy requirement for drying
Eq. (36). Annual operation hours (h/yr) 2000
Steam cost ($/kW) 0.1
Cop CLP Qhtr top =3600 (36) Operating cost for drying ($/yr) 357,563
Dryer
Air temperature, Ta,3 ( C) 42
3.6. The product value Air relative humidity, RH3 (%) 60
Residence time (h) 0.11
% of free volume for air 0.850
When wood is subjected to drying the caloric value of the wet Size of dryer (m3) 6.2
wood chips is expected to increase with decreasing moisture con- Cost of dryer ($/yr) 19,891
tent based on Eq. (2). It is evident that wood chips having high Heat value of dried wood
LHV of dried wood (kJ/kg) 15,000
caloric value will have high cost. Assuming the value of dried
Total heat value of dried wood (kJ/h) 45,376,316
product is a function of the LHV, the moisture content and a cost Total heat value of dried wood (kW) 12,604.53
factor Cs ($/kW), the corresponding monetary gain upon caloric Heat value of wood ($/kW) 0.05
value enhancement of wood is calculated using Eq. (37). Heat value of wood ($/yr) 1,260,453
Total equipment cost ($/yr) 70,713
Total operating cost ($/yr) 357,563
Cs Ws 1 X3 LHV
Cs  top (37) Total prot, AP ($/yr) 832,178
3600
72 T. Gebreegziabher et al. / Energy 53 (2013) 67e73

Table 4
Case study results.

Base case/1 (L 0.0005 m) Case 2 (L 0.005 m ) Case 3 (L 0.05 m) Case 4 (L 0.05 m)

Moisture content of the dried wood, X3 (wt%) 17 17 17 43
LHV of the dried wood, LHVs (KJ/kg) 15,000 15,000 15,000 9698
Solid residence time, t (h) 0.11 8 247 0.03
Air feed rate, Wa,1 (kg/h) 179,496 83,358 158,187 59,842
Air preheated temperature, Ta,2 ( C) 62 97 107 60
Air exhausted temperature Ta,3 ( C) 35 43 78 35
Heater cost ($/yr) 50,250 71,138 160,818 21,161
Dryer cost ($/yr) 21,495 219,008 1,700,822 12,237
Energy cost ($/yr) 357,913 353,818 766,027 119,324
Product value ($/yr) 1,260,453 1,260,453 1,260,453 1,172,979
Annual prot ($/yr) 830,795 616,489 1,367,214 1,020,258

4. Objective function optimum solution. Results of these cases are shown in Table 4. The
annual prot reduces to 616,489 $/yr when the size increased to
Maximizing the net annual prot (AP) of the process was set as 0.005 m mainly due to the increase of the dryer cost. When L is
the objective function of the cost optimization problem which is getting larger (0.05 m), the process generates negative benet
calculated by Eq. (38). of 1,367,214 $/yr. This was due to the signicant increases of
  dryer and energy costs. We also noticed that in these three cases,
AP Cs  Chtr Cdyr Cop (38) the LHVs remains at the minimum required value of 15,000 kJ/kg.
This indicates that the protability of the process may be
5. The base case improved by relaxing LHV value. The results of Case 4 shown in
Table 4 agree with this expectation and the annual prot increases
The base case of this study is to design a drying process to to 1,019,908 $/yr at an LHVs of 9698 kJ/kg. These results give us an
process 5000 kg/h of moist wood chips with moisture content of indication that if we could accept lower LHVs of the fuel, we may
1 kg/kg (dB) using a hot air dryer. Air to the dryer is preheated by a obtain higher heat value from its combustion. However, as earlier
LP steam at 120  C using an air heater. The design parameters used discussed, burning low LHV biofuel could cause environmental
for the base case are summarized in Table 1 while the process and or operational problems. In fact, this is being done in quite a
constraints applied to the base case include; few developing countries that allow small scale biofuel power
plant with direct combustion of biofuel with high moisture con-
1. Air preheated temperature, 60  C  Ta,2 110  C tent. Nevertheless, moist biofuels can be blended with another
2. Relative humidity of the exhaust air, RH3  60% auxiliary fuel such as coal or other high heat value solid wastes
3. The LHV of the nal product, LHV  15 MJ/kg such as plastics for avoiding operational problems during
4. Residence time > 100 s combustion.

The overall annual prot dened in Eq. (38) was maximized by
changing the feed rate of air (Wa,1), the air preheat temperature (Ta,2),
the drying time of the solid (t) and the temperature and relative
humidity of the exhaust air (Ta,3 and RH3). Excel 2010 Standard GRG
Non-linear Solver was used to solve the optimization problem.
6. Result of the base case
The results of calculations for the base case are presented in
Tables 2 and 3.
In the optimum design, air is preheated to 62  C before con-
tacting the solid inside the dryer. The outlet temperatures of the air
and solid stream are 42  C and 37  C with the relative humidity of
the exhaust gas at 60% (at the maximum value). The optimization
tends to push the RH value of the exhaust gas to the highest to
reduce the ow rate of the feed air. So that the moisture content of
the exhaust air does not become too high or over saturated, setting
a maximum limit of RH3 is necessary. In an actual plant, the outlet
air humidity can be controlled by recycling parts of the process air.
The optimum solution of the base case indicated that the plant is
protable with the moisture level of the dried wood at 17 wt% the
LHVs is at the minimum level 15,000 kJ/kg. The residence time is
0.11 h. The low operating temperature of the dryer was due to the
small value of L (0.0005 m).
7. Case studies
The value of L is set to 0.005 m and 0.05 m (Case 2 and Case 3)
to examine on how the thickness of the wood would affect the
8. Conclusions
A mathematical model of a drying process of wood chips is used
to optimize the design and operation of the process. The model
took into account material and energy balances of individual pro-
cessing units. With the integration of drying kinetics, the model
allowed a proper trade-off among the operating cost, capital in-
vestment and product value. The optimum solutions indicated that
the size of the wood chips strongly affects the economy. When the
size of the wood chips become too large, the drying time becomes
too long thus signicantly increases the dryer size and energy cost.
Up to a certain size, the drying plant becomes unprotable. Another
observation is that if a lower heating value of the dried wood chips
is acceptable, the process will be protable. Therefore, in order to
satisfy the constraint of minimum heating value without upsetting
the environment and/or operation of the combustion process when
drying too large or too wet biomass, auxiliary fuel is one of the
options to be considered.
Acknowledgment
The authors would acknowledge the nancial support from the
UGC-Infra-Structure Grt. (FSGRF13EG03), the Studentship from
EVNG program and the International Studentship from the School
of Engineering at HKUST.
Nomenclature
a capital cost parameter
 T. Gebreegziabher et al. / Energy 53 (2013) 67e73 73

A heat transfer area of the air heater (m2) Subscripts

AP annual prot ($/yr) 1, 2, 3, i locations
b capital cost parameter a moist air
c capital cost parameter da, G dry air
Cdyr cost of dryer ($/yr) ds dry solid
Chtr heat exchanger cost ($/yr) dyr dryer
Cop operating cost ($/yr) e equilibrium value
Cpds specic heat of dry solid (kJ/kg  C) eff effective
Cpw specic heat of water (kJ/kg  C) ex exhaust
Cpwater specic heat of water vapor (kJ/kg  C) htr steam heater
Cs heating value cost of moist solid ($/yr) LP low pressure steam
Deff effective diffusivity (m2/s) o initial value
Do pre-exponential factor of Arrhenius equation (m2/s) ref reference state
DT temperature different of the air and solid at the outlet of s moist solid
the dryer (K) v water vapor
Ea activation energy (kJ mol1) w water
Hda enthalpy of dry air (kJ/h)
Hs enthalpy of dry solid (kJ/kg) Reference
Hw,x enthalpy of water at location x (kJ/kg)
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X moisture content of solid (kg/kg dB)
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