%0 Journal Article %@ 10226680 %A Rahamnian, N. %A Homayoonfard, M. %C Kuala Lumpur %D 2014 %F scholars:5176 %I Trans Tech Publications Ltd %J Advanced Materials Research %K Drop breakup; Metabolism; Process engineering, Co currents; Counter current; Heat and mass transfer; Heat transfer performance; Prilling; Process control strategies; Simultaneous solution; Spray cooling, Urea %P 199-208 %R 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.917.199 %T A comparison of co-current and counter-current modes of operation in urea prilling tower %U https://khub.utp.edu.my/scholars/5176/ %V 917 %X In this paper, a model for urea prilling tower with co-current flow of cooling air and urea prills (particles) is presented. The process is modelled by simultaneous solution of the differentialequations for hydrodynamics, heat and mass transfer between the air and prills. The process variables such as temperature, absolute and relative humidity of air along the height of the tower were obtained from this model. Temperature and moisture distribution of urea prills and their radial and vertical velocities were also calculated. The results of the present model were compared with the counter-current operation model available in the literature. The simulation results show that heat transfer performance for co-current operation is significantly less than that of the counter-current scenario. This is more pronounced for small prills, i.e. 1.0 mm than that of the large prills. The advantage of the model is that it can be used to investigate influence of operating parameters on efficiency of the co-current process. This also helps us to set the process control strategies for design and quality control purposes of the process. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland. %Z cited By 2; Conference of International Conference on Process Engineering and Advanced Materials, ICPEAM 2012 ; Conference Date: 12 June 2012 Through 14 June 2012; Conference Code:106208