Energy Performance, Environmental Impacts and Costs of a Drying System: Life Cycle Analysis of Conventional and Heat Recovery Scenarios

Dario Giuseppe Urbano, Andrea Aquino and Flavio Scrucca ()
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Dario Giuseppe Urbano: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Andrea Aquino: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Brescia, 25123 Brescia, Italy
Flavio Scrucca: Department of Sustainability, Circular Economy Section, Italian National Agency for New Technologies Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), 00059 Rome, Italy

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 3, 1-12

Abstract: High energy consumption is one of the main problems of drying, a critical process for many industrial sectors. The optimization of drying energy use results in significant energy saving and has become a topic of interest in recent decades. We investigate benefits of heat recovery in a convective drying system by comparing two different scenarios. The Baseline Scenario is a conventional industrial dryer, and Scenario 1 includes the preheating of drying air by exhausts from the drying chamber. We show that the energy efficiency of the drying cycle is strictly related to the properties of the dried material and operative conditions, and performance improves significantly (by 59% to 87%) when installing a heat recovery unit (Scenario 1). Additionally, the temperature of drying air affects performance. We assess both scenarios by LCA analysis, measuring the environmental impacts and externalities of four different fuels (natural gas, light fuel oil, biomethane, and hardwood chips). Our findings indicate that heat recovery reduces environmental impacts, both when fossil and renewable fuels feed the system, but unexpected impact arises for some categories when renewable fuels are used.

Keywords: drying; energy analysis; environmental impact; LCA; LCC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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