To address the growing need for economically viable sludge processing technologies and associated resource recovery, a novel convective high-velocity pilot cyclone was set-up at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Umeå, Sweden. In essence this process entails feeding (≤900kgh-1) a material to a heated high-velocity air flow (approx. 13×103m3h-1) allowing moisture removal at low temperatures. This equipment is expected to improve drying of challenging industrial sludge materials when used as a pretreatment method prior to further processing. Modeling results based on an experimental campaign on recycled paper mill sludge indicated that efficient drying with a specific energy consumption of ≤1-1.2kWhkg-1H2O can be achieved with inlet air temperature levels ≥40°C coupled with respective feeding capacity of ≤750kgh-1.