Determination of the residence-time distribution in industrial dryer for the production of recycled polyester

Abstract

The study proposes the evaluation of the residence-time distribution (RTD) in-situ in an industrial dryer for the production of recycled polyester fibers (PES) from colorless polyethylene terephthalate (PET) flakes without interruption of the production. A disturbance of the pulse type was employed, in which the tracer (blue PET flakes) had previously been crystalized and its concentration was obtained according to the time at the dryer outlet. Additionally, analyses of intrinsic viscosity and crystallization percentage of the PET flakes (colorless and blue) and PES intrinsic viscosity and color force were performed. By RTD, the mean residence time (322.8 min), the variance (1305.4 min2), the standard deviation (36.1 min) and the relative error (1.5%) were obtained when compared to the theoretical residence time, indicating the absence of preferred paths or flake agglomerates in the equipment. Finally, the characterization demonstrated that there was no alteration in the parameters of product quality during RTD evaluation, confirming the potential of application of this methodology for diagnoses of continuous industrial processes.