Isothermal drying kinetics of oil palm trunk: Energy and shrinkage evaluation

Author

Wan Noor Aidawati Wan Nadhari 

 

Rokiah Hashim 

 

Mohammed Danish 

 

Othman Sulaiman 

Norani Abd. Karim 

 

Ahmad Naim Ahmad Yahaya 

 

Norhafizah Saari

First published: 6 March 2017

 

https://doi.org/10.1002/ep.12565

Abstract

Oil palm trunk (OPT) is one of the alternative resources for building materials. This research investigated the drying characteristics of OPT blocks of dimension 43.91 mm × 19.73 mm × 15.82 mm by controlling the relative humidity under an isothermal condition. The isothermal temperature condition selected for this study were 25, 30, 35, and 40°C. The obtained drying data were applied to Logarithmic, Wang‐Singh, Page, Midilli‐Kucuk, Henderson‐Pabis, Newton, and Nadhari models. The drying kinetics were evaluated through these models. The suitability of these models was assessed based on the sum of square error, the coefficient of determination (R2), the reduced chi‐square (χ2), and root mean square error. The Nadhari model was found to be a suitable model for explaining the drying behavior of OPT at various isothermal temperature conditions. The effective diffusivity, drying rate, porosity, and shrinkage were found to be increasing with the increasing of isothermal drying temperature. The activation energy of OPT during drying was found to be 35.56 kJ/mol. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 36: 1244–1252, 2017

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https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ep.12565