Contribution à l’amélioration des procédés de séchage contribution à l’amélioration des procédés de séchage.

Abstract

Recently the influence of the huge increase in energy cost has had an impact on the Manufacturing or transformation process where drying is implemented. Herbal and medicinal plants dehydration is among these applications. Medicinal plants are a massive holder of multiple active components, and essential oils, which are principally used in pharmaceutical production, perfumery... etc. In the present study, experiments besides a simulation have been carried out for analysing well the Myrtus Communis leaves dehydration procedure. Drying kinetics for the Myrtus Communis leaves has been pointed out in an indirect solar dryer in Constantine area, (Algeria), and sorption isotherms experiments have been defined in a laboratory using the static gravimetric method. These valuable experimental data have been used in the numerical simulation in order to proximate the modelling to the real phenomena. Numerical simulation has been carried out using the finite element method by the use of the closed source package Comsol Multiphysics. Predict airflow distribution inside a solar dryer helps in avoiding microbial growth and contamination, as well as optimizing dryers design.