In this work, the performance of a conventional cascading rotary dryer has been compared with a modified configuration, known as a roto-aerated dryer. The results obtained show that for the roto-aerated dryer the residence time was 48% lower, the difference between outlet-and inlet-solids temperature was 1.7-3.3 times higher and the air temperature variations were 1.1-1.7 times higher than for the conventional rotary configuration. All the results of the present work confirm the better performance of roto-aerated dryer. This improvement in drying performance is due to the better gas-particle contact in this new configuration. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.