Heat and Mass Transfer in Leather Drying Process

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Leather manufacturing involves a crucial energy-intensive drying stage in the finishing process to remove its residual moisture. Determining drying characteristics of leather is vitally important so as to optimize the drying stage. This paper describes an analytical way for determination of the drying characteristics of leather. The model presented, is based on fundamental heat and mass transfer equations. Variations in temperature and moisture content distribution is solved numerically using the finite difference method. The effects of operation parameters, are examined using the model. The results of the parametric study provide a better understanding of the drying mechanisms and may lead to a series of  recommendations for leather drying optimization. It opens the possibility for further investigations on description of relationships between model parameters and drying conditions.