This article presents the outlook of the energy situation in Japan and reviews the recent R&D on innovative drying technologies performed in Japan. The overview of drying includes fundamentals as well as industrial technologies. The topics considered are drying characteristics of several materials, drying of hard-to-handle powders, drying of coatings, drying-induced strain-stress problems, drying modeling, and drying of agricultural wastes for functional recycling and noble dryers. An appropriate combination of heating methods and dryer type can result in significant enhancement of efficiency, drying rate, and/or material quality. The final goal of this article to contribute to providing an idea for development and evaluation of precise drying systems with a high performance and an effect of energy saving in drying.
INTRODUCTIONDrying is an important technology in several fields and consumes a large amount of energy. In Japan, a number of R&D projects on drying technologies are carried out to improve the energy efficiency as well as to reduce drying time in fields of food, ceramics, powder, pharmacy, film coating, etc., while maintaing their highest quality. Recently, there has been research to add an effective function and to model the drying behavior for optimum design and precise operation or control.The objective of this article is to introduce the R&D on innovative drying technology performed in Japan. The trend of drying technology is concerned with the energy situation in Japan. The outlook of the current energy situation surrounding Japan was briefly surveyed preliminarily. The overview includes fundamentals as well as industrial technology. The brief topics consist of prediction of drying characteristic curves, drying of specific materials like aqueous polymer solution, coated film, agricultural products or wastes, food, ceramics, spray drying, freeze drying, fluidized bed drying, superheated steam drying, and microwave drying. An