An Analytical Solution of the Convective Drying of a Multicomponent Liquid Film

Analytical solutions of the diffusion and conduction equations applied to liquidside-controlled convective drying of a multicomponent liquid film are developed. Assuming constant physical properties of the liquid, the equations describing interactive mass transfer are decoupled by a similarity transformation and solved simultaneously with conduction equation by the method of variable separation. Variations of physical properties along the process trajectory are taken into account by a stepwise application of the solution in time intervals with averaged coefficients from previous time steps. Despite simplifications, the analytical solution gives a good insight into the selectivity of the drying process and is computationally fast.