Volume 4: Innovative Solutions for Energy Transitions: Part III

Development and Performance Analysis of a Phosphate Flash Dryer Integrated With PTC Array Touria Moudakkar,Zhor ElHallaoui,Sebastien Vaudreuil, Tijani Bounahmidi

Abstract

This paper presents a phosphate flash dryer integrated with a parabolic trough collector (PTC) at bench scale. Due to the discontinuity of the solar radiation, the dynamic response of the system is analyzed for the performance prediction and the control strategy design. For this purpose, a solar flash dryer model is developed and simulated using the Engineering Equation Solver software. Then, the impact of the environmental parameters on the drying temperature is examined. Regarding the dynamic behavior of the solar flash dryer versus the months of year, it was shown that the oil temperature is more affected by the solar radiation and the solar incidence angle, conducting then to a maximum drying air temperature and a maximum product mass flow rate of 140°C and 60 kg/h respectively. Also, in order to keep drying conditions stable during tests, the oil temperature regulation is covered by the electrical heater. Finally, the global performance of the process is evaluated and compared to other solar industrial processes. According to the obtained results, the gained output ratio of the solar flash dryer is limited to 0.11 compared to 0.34 by the solar distillation. This value will be optimized in the future work based on the process model and exergy analysis.

Keywords Solar energy for industrial application, gained output ratio, parabolic trough collector, flash dryer