Chapters authored
Moisture Evaporation from Granular Biopesticides Containing Quiescent Entomopathogenic Nematodes
The moisture evaporation process from granular biopesticides (GBs) containing entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs) has influence in the shelf-life of these biological products, but the approach to design GBs with desired transport properties lacks of theoretical support to get closer in a better way to formulations design of long-term storage. In this chapter we review the state of art in theoretical studies about the physics of the moisture evaporation to elucidate what are the mechanisms of drying of GBs. We found that several external and internal factors influence the transport process of moisture exchange among others phenomenon that happened in a porous media such as GBs; consequently, complex and highly dynamic interactions between medium properties, transport processes, and boundary conditions result in a wide range of evaporation behaviors. The theory of drying process in two stages for porous materials with high moisture content seems to be a good starting point to explore further the drying of GBs at different scales and mechanistic and correlative models of evaporation are available to analyze the desiccation in different stages of the elaboration process, which is also of interest in the subject area of science and technology of the formulation of EPNs.
Part of the book: Current Perspective to Predict Actual Evapotranspiration