Dryer image courtesy of Carrier Vibrating Equipment, Inc.
Drying has long played an important role in the history of the development of industry. In fact, far before the concept of industry was conceived of by anyone, ancient civilizations were drying goods and agricultural products for varying purposes and in varying ways. In that sense, the role of drying in our economies and in our lives has not changed. What has changed is the way that we dry things and the Continue reading
Industrial air dryer image courtesy of Marion Mixers.
If you want to understand why air dryers are so important to industry, think about the analogy of the hair dryer. Why do people use hair dryers? Being a male, I can’t speak to this first benefit in detail, but I understand that it affects the way a person’s hair looks when it dries. Ignore that reason – it doesn’t have anything to do with the analogy. The other reason, though, does. People use hair dryers because they reduce the amount of time it takes for something, usually hair, to dry after it becomes wet. The way that a hair dryer does this is the same way that industrial air dryers dry Continue reading
Industrial dryer image courtesy of Patterson Industries.
There are a lot of similarities between the dryer that I use to dry my clothes and a dryer that might be used to dry large quantities of granular industrial ingredients. Consider the example of an industrial rotary dryer. A rotary dryer is a large tube that’s positioned at a downward sloping angle between a feeding mechanism (which is also often equipped with the rotary drive) and a receiving mechanism. The tube itself is made to rotate, and hot air is forced through the tube, which causes the Continue reading
Industrial drying is an important process. There are many different contexts in which access to industrial drying equipment is necessary. There is a particularly large need within industry for drying equipment that can be used to dry large quantities of free flowing materials. Such materials include fibers, agricultural products, industrial chemicals and a wide variety of other Continue reading
Rotary dryers are heavy-duty industrial drying machines. If you were to look at a rotary dryer from the outside, it might not be immediately clear what you were looking at. But with a little bit of explanation, rotary dryers are easy to understand. If you don’t already know what rotary dryers look like, imagine a long, metal tube about the diameter of a municipal underground sewer pipe. Many varieties of rotary dryer tubes would be Continue reading
Food drying is an important process for commercial food producers, and this has been the case since food production existed on an industrial scale. However, the process of food drying has been in practice by humans for thousands of years. Moisture removal from food was one of the principal methods of food preservation before the advent of refrigeration. Combined with smoking, salting and curing, drying was one of Continue reading
Industry is all about effectiveness and efficiency. Combining these two qualities in an industrial process usually yields favorable results. This is as true in industrial drying processes as it is in any process. In recognition of this reality, industry responded to the challenge of the mass drying of products with the conveyor dryer. The conveyor dryer is a machine that is capable of drying large quantities of Continue reading
I love space. Well, having written that out, it sounds kind of stupid. Let me rephrase that: I love to learn and think about manned space travel. It’s exciting and romantic in addition to the fact that it contributes to the advancement of human knowledge and does so in the spirit of international cooperation. I’ve never been a good math or science student, so the odds against me becoming involved Continue reading
Here’s the best analogy for understanding why infrared dryers are used in some contexts rather than air dryers. Suppose that you’re making a batch of cookies for a party later in the evening. You’ve got your dough all mixed up, you’re ready to roll it out and place it on the cookie sheet… everything’s going well so far. Of course, the next step is to bake them. What do you use to bake cookies? You use an Continue reading
Recently I listened to an episode of one of my favorite radio shows, This American Life, while I was doing some dishes. The episode featured the story of a journalist who traveled to Shenzhen, China, which is home to factories where many of the most popular electronic devices are assembled by Chinese workers on behalf of American companies before they are shipped to US. Shenzhen is Continue reading