Radio Frequency Heating—A Prospective Leather Drying System for Future

Abstract

Drying is one of the important operations influencing finished product quality and leather is no exception. Newer drying methods are being explored worldwide in order to enhance the productivity and quality. Radio frequency (RF) heating is being increasingly applied for industrial applications such as drying of wood, paper, and textiles. Investigations on the use of radio frequency heating for leather drying has been attempted in the present work which has led to promising results. Compared to conventional air-drying, RF heating produced leathers of comparable quality both at laboratory and semi-commercial scale trials. Leather drying by radio frequency heating has resulted in time reduction by more than 80%, at favorable energy costs.

Keywords:

• Leather drying
• Leather quality
• Moisture content
• Natural air-drying
• RF heating

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the help rendered by M/S.HMS Medial system, Chennai, India and M/s Stafi International, Pune, India for extending experimental facilities for lab scale and semi-commercial trials respectively in this work.