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The energy consumption for mechanical processes can be several orders of magnitude lower compared to thermal drying processes, see Figure 3.44.
As long as the material to be dried lets it, it is recommendable to use predominantly mechanical primary separation processes to reduce the amount of energy used for the entire process. Generally speaking, the majority of products can be mechanically pretreated to average moisture content levels (the ratio between the liquid mass of the liquid to be removed and the mass of dry substance) of between 40 and 70 per cent. In practice, the use of the mechanical process is limited by the permissible material loads and/or economic draining times.
Sometimes mechanical processes are also recommendable prior to thermal treatment. When drying solutions or suspensions (spray drying, for instance), the pretreatment can be membrane filtration (reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, ultrafiltration or microfiltration). For example, in the dairy industry, milk can be concentrated to 76 % moisture content before spray drying.

機械處理和加熱乾燥處理相比，能源消耗可以省很多倍。
除讓原料自行乾燥外，採用機力作初級分離處理方式可全程節能，是值得推薦的主要方式。ㄧ般而言，大多數產品都可以機械預處理方式，將其中水分處理至平均含水量(被移走的水分和乾燥物質間的質量比)40~70%的程度。
有時機械處理被建議當作加熱處理的前置處理。乾燥溶液或懸浮液(如噴霧乾燥)之前置處理可採用隔膜過濾法(逆滲透法、奈米級過濾法、超微級過濾法、微米級過濾法)，例如奶製品產業的產品-牛奶可被濃縮至76%含水量，然後再作噴霧乾燥處理。