Exergy Analysis of Biomass Drying Based on Self-Heat Recuperation Technology and Its Application to Industry: a Simulation and Experimental Study

An energy-saving process for biomass drying was proposed to improve the overall energy efficiency by using self-heat recuperation technology for future industrial use. Energy analysis based on the simulation results showed that the primary energy consumption and CO2 emission in the proposed process can be decreased to 74% and 36% of that of the conventional heat recovery dryer, respectively. Moreover, exergy analysis was conducted to clarify exergy losses in the proposed drying process, and further energy-saving solutions were raised to minimize exergy loss based on exergy recuperation theory. The experimental results indicated that three times of the minimum fluidization velocity was a necessary condition for good fluidization. It was also confirmed that the proposed fluidized bed dryer for biomass drying achieves stable performance for more than 2 h in the experiments.