The main objective of this research was to study drying kinetics of air dried sheet (ADS)
rubber using hot air and simulated drying kinetics by empirical model compared to experimental
results. The 10-15 fresh rubber sheet with initial moisture content ranging of 23-40% dry-basis was
dried by temperature of 40-70°C and air flow rate of 0.7 m/s. The fresh rubber sheet samples were
dried until the desired final moisture content reached to 0.15% dry-basis. The experimental results
showed that the drying rate of ADS rubber dried with hot air convection was faster than conventional
natural air convection and drying rate was related to drying temperature. The experimental data was
statistical non-linear regression analyzed by using 10 conventional empirical models. The coefficient
of determination (R2) and root mean square error (RMSE) values were used as the criteria for
selecting the best equation to describe the experimental data The results showed that the calculated
results of Verma et al.’ model had a good relation to the experimental results. For specific energy
evaluation, the results showed that at high drying temperature specific energy consumption of ADS
rubber was relatively low compared to drying with low temperature. Finally, the determination of
physical quality showed that.