Don’t Fall For Common Misconceptions

    Myths and misconceptions become part of accepted practice if repeated often enough. They are propagated by lack of fundamental particle-technology knowledge and by certain commercial interests. The list of presented here is by no means exhaustive. We have, however, made an attempt to cover a broad range of topics to highlight the widespread nature of these misconceptions. They are broken down by operation, which are ordered alphabetically for easy reference. We intend to engage the reader’s inquisitiveness with this list, and hope that practitioners of solids processing technology will learn to challenge established practices and not always accept them as a given facts.   Drying Misconception: The required drying time, when a contact dryer is used, does not depend on the equipment size. Reality: The required residence time to reach desired moisture content in a contact dryer (with heated walls) depends on the size of the equipment. The ratio of volume of material to the surface area of heated walls determines the drying time. This ratio increases as the dryer size increases. Therefore, residence time required in full scale dryers is longer than measured during pilot testing. One must pay close attention to…