Drying of Foods, Vegetables and Fruits
Drying is an important unit operation used in numerous industries and well known as a dominant industrial consumer of fossil fuel-derived energy in developed countries.
As standard of living rises in the developing world energy usage for drying operations will rise along with the demand for energy-efficient, faster, environmentally friendly (minimal carbon foot print) and cost-effective drying technologies will continue to increase worldwide.
Indeed, the growth in energy consumption for drying will increase at a higher pace in the rapidly developing world, in particular the rapidly developing as well as very large economies of China, Brazil and India.
As the fuel prices rise, it is necessary to develop sustainable drying technologies using renewable sources using innovative ideas. Drying of food products has been a very important industrial sector for many years.
This is also reflected in the continuing success of the International Drying Symposium (IDS) series and numerous sister conferences as a well as a premier archival journal devoted exclusively to drying science, technology and engineering. Drying R&D seems to have reached a sustainable level of activity around the globe, still there is tremendous scope to carry out R&D in this complex process.
