ANáLISE DA SECAGEM DO BAGA O DE LARANJA EM CAMADA FINA UTILIZANDO MODELOS SEMI-TEóRICOS E EMPíRICOS

Important physical characteristics of orange bagasse for biosorption processes were evaluatedwithin a 33-92 oC drying temperature range under controlled air velocity, considering some semi-empiricalmodels to represent the experimental data. It was noticed that the particle diffusivity into the biomass is astrong depending parameter on the drying temperature. By the application of an Arrhenius-type equationon the diffusivity data, a value of 10.699 KJ mol-1 for the activation energy was attained. In addition, thedrying process data were interpreted by using unstructural models, showing the strongly drying temperaturedepending behavior for all model constant parameters. Regarding the whole of modeling results, the modifiedPage model has fitted well to the drying process data, according to some statistical parameters such as F-test,which were better than the other ones. Based on such results, the modified Page model was thus assigned thebest one to represent the experimental data as well as it could be recommended as an adequate guide modelfor the drying process optimization tests of orange bagasse among other similar biomasses.