LAUSR

Abstract Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) drying is a promising way to dehydrate food and other materials. The driving forces of the moisture removal from the product are, however, not yet completely understood. Therefore, a unique experimental setup with a grounded metal mesh collector was designed to separately evaluate the electrical and convective effects of EHD on the drying rate. EHD drying showed significantly higher drying rate (2–2.7 times) compared to purely convective drying at a comparable airspeed range. The direct effect of electrical drivers (electrostatic field and ion flow) on the drying rate was about 30%, while the main effect was due to the EHD-induced convective airflow. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to separate convective and electrical mechanisms of EHD drying, which is critically important for industrial upscaling of this technology.