ANN Modeling of Drying Kinetics for Molded Pulp Product during Convective and Microwave Drying Process

Abstract

With the purpose of improving molded pulp product (MPP) drying process, the present work investigated the microwave drying performance of MPP under the power level of 500 W and compared that with the convective drying method. The drying kinetics, the effective moisture diffusivity, and the energy consumption of the two drying methods were evaluated respectively. It was found that the drying time was shortened from 22.0 min for convective drying to 16.0 min for microwave drying due to 27% of drying rate enhancement, and the effective moisture diffusivity was increased from 3.01×10 -10 to 4.49×10 -10 m 2 /s. Additionally, 88% of energy consumption could be saved in the microwave drying process. An artificial neural network (ANN) was employed to predict the moisture removing kinetics of MPP. The results revealed that the ANN modeling could be used to predict the drying kinetics of MPP effectively and then determine the moisture content in the drying process.