Perspectives on Drying R&D: Past, present and future
Industrial and academic interest in drying R&D has been on the rise monotonically since the establishment of the International Drying Symposium(IDS) series at McGill University, Canada in 1978 followed by Drying Technology-An International Journal in 1982. The principal driving forces for this activity have been the high energy intensity, impact on dried product quality, cost-effectiveness and more recently environmental impact caused by use of fossil fuels as the main energy source for drying. Innovation in drying is driven by the need to design a sustainable operation with small footprint and lower life cycle costs. Although there are few truly disruptive drying technologies in most industrial sectors, there has been much cumulative incremental innovations that have improved the energy efficiency of most dryers with increased understanding of the drying operation and better ability to scale-up. Innovation can be further enhanced using mathematical models to lower R&D costs. The increased global interest in drying is evident from the numerous conferences held annually around different parts of the world which have spawned from IDS. The manuscript flow to the journal has been rising and so is the number of papers offered to IDS meetings. To bring the innovative ideas presented at conferences and in journals need to be brought into practice by encouraging open innovation and encouraging direct interaction between industry and academia. A SWOT analysis will be presented to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges that will be faced in future drying R&D. Role of globalization, innovation and climate change constraints on drying will be discussed.
