Drying of Droplet Containing Insoluble Nanoscale Particles: Numerical Simulations and Parametric Study

Abstract

To predict particle morphology, a theoretical description of drying of a single droplet containing insoluble nanoscale has been developed. Various possible morphological structures of the droplet/particle, depending on temperature, velocity, moisture content, porosity, and other droplet and drying agent properties, have been examined. Furthermore, the present contribution contains a qualitative description of the overall drying process and a mathematical model for the first stage of drying, including the transition period, which has been validated with good agreement to experimental data. The implementation and compatibility of the numerical solution using different solid diffusion coefficients is explained and compared. Moreover, the importance of choosing an appropriate solid diffusion coefficient is indicated. Finally, because the behavior of drying material and the characteristics of dry product are affected by the specifics of the drying process, an extensive parametric study has been conducted to determine the influence of different parameters on the drying kinetics and morphology of obtained dry particle.

Keywords:

• Diffusion coefficient
• Droplet drying
• Morphology
• Nanoscale particle
• Parametric study