Walker, Craig, Cole, Andrew, and Sheehan, Madoc (2015) Modelling of thin layer drying of macroalgae. In: Proceedings of the 16th Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Congress. 3134753. From: APCChE 2015: 16th Asian Pacific Confederation of Chemical Congress, 27 September - 1 October 2015, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.

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Abstract

Algae based products have recently received attention as a potential new and sustainable industry, with applications in bioremediation of waste streams and biofuel production. However, there are significant hurdles to their successful implementation, notably in processing costs associated with dewatering of the algae. Drying has generally been recognised as constituting the largest energy cost in algae processing. This is due to the high initial moisture content and because moisture is bound internally in the material. To date, most drying research has only studied microalgae, and there is limited data for drying kinetics of macroalgae. This paper describes an experimental study of the drying of two macroalgae species (Ulva ohnoi, Oedogonium sp.) using both radiative and convective drying over a range of temperatures, from 40 to 60°C. Other relevant variables such as relative humidity and material thickness were measured and kept constant during the testing. The drying kinetics were fitted to an analytical solution of Fick's law, a common theoretical model of drying, to determine its suitability to model macroalgae drying. The effective diffusivity of the material was determined as between 1×10-8 and 6×10-8 m2/s for both species, and characterised as an Arrenhius-like function of temperature. Comparisons of the Fick's law model and other commonly used semi-theoretical models were also performed and were used to discuss the reliability of drying rate models.

Item ID:	42676
Item Type:	Conference Item (Research - E1)
ISBN:	978-1-922107-47-3
Keywords:	bioproducts, diffusion, drying, macroalgae, modelling
Related URLs:	Organisation
Date Deposited:	15 Feb 2016 04:36
FoR Codes:	09 ENGINEERING > 0904 Chemical Engineering > 090403 Chemical Engineering Design @ 100%
SEO Codes:	85 ENERGY > 8505 Renewable Energy > 850501 Biofuel (Biomass) Energy @ 100%
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