Heat Pump-Assisted Dryers

Vasile Minea is a Ph.D. graduate of Bucharest Technical Construction University,Romania. He worked as university professor for over 15 years, teaching courses inhydraulic/fluid and HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning) systems forcivil, agricultural, and industrial processes and buildings, as well as thermodynamics,heat transfer, and refrigeration. From 1987, Dr. Minea worked for more than30 years as a scientist researcher at the Hydro-Quebec Research Institute, Laboratoryof Energy Technologies in Quebec, Canada. His research activity mainly focused onindustrial refrigeration and heat pumps, heat recovery technologies in large-scalecommercial/institutional HVAC systems, and various industrial processes (such asheat pump-assisted drying), low- and medium-temperature geothermal heat pumps,and medium-enthalpy power generation cycles. During this period, Dr. Minea collaboratedwith the Canadian and American heat pump industry and R&D dryingcommunity in developing laboratory- and industrial-scale experimental heat pumpassisteddrying systems.

• 1. Introduction. 2. Drying of Porous Solid Materials. 3. Drying of Fruits and Vegetables. 4. Drying of Woods. 5. Heat Pump-Assisted Drying: What’s Wrong?. 6. Optimum Coupling of Thermodynamic Systems. 7. Optimizing Dehumidification Capacity of Mechanical Vapor Compression Heat Pumps. 8. Efficient Operation and Control Rules. 9. Conclusions.