Computational investigation of air solid flow in a spray dryer for effluent treatment

Abstract

In this work, the hydrodynamics and evaporation rate of the co-current spray dryer is numerically investigated through ANSYS Fluent (CFD). The performance of the spray dryer depends on the geometry, operating conditions, and underlying hydrodynamics in such systems. To predict the air-solid flow in a spray dryer, the Euler-Lagrangian CFD model is used to track the particles in the dryer. The continuous phase turbulence is predicted using RNG version of k-turbulence model. To quantify the flow pattern, a horizontal line is considered and spatial variation of velocity profiles are analyzed. The predicted air velocity variation was found to be maximum at the center of the core. Further, the airflow pattern is analyzed for various operating temperatures and feed properties. It was found that airflow pattern influences particle behavior with minimum deposition rates on each section of the wall when air temperature is 350 K. © 2020 Scientific Publishers. All rights reserved.