In solid–liquid separation, the centrifugal drainage operation is
an efficient and economic process for particulate suspensions. This
technique has found main applications in the pharmaceutical,
chemical and textile industries. Its interest relies on the elimination
of most of the liquid at low energetic cost. Nevertheless, elimination
of residual moisture requires a stage of drying. The
combination of mechanical and thermal operations in the same
machine in a so-called hybrid process may present various advantages.
Hybrid processes for solid–liquid separation have been
widely studied during the past decades. The benefits of using
two different technologies in one and the same apparatus are
numerous: