Temperature proles show a drying zone slowly propagating from
the heat exposed surfaces towards the inside, whereas the global drying rate presents two maxima, corresponding to moisture
evaporation along a thin supercial layer and sample heat-up, respectively. The drying times reproduce trends already known
on dependence of the external heating conditions and the initial moisture content. From the quantitative point of view, a
moisture content of 50% is observed to delay the particle heating times up to factors of 3–5. Acceptable quantitative agreement
is obtained between these measurements and the predictions of a simplied model of moisture evaporation in wood, which
can be used to treat single particle e7ects in the more complicated mathematical descriptions of gasier behavior.
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