The drying of fine sand particles (below 1 mm) has been studied in a conical spouted bed fitted with a draft tube in order to ascertain the performance of a new internal device to confine the fountain. Accordingly, batch runs have been carried out using three types of draft tubes, with confiner and without it under ambient conditions. Their performances have been compared in order to ascertain the optimum configuration. The results evidence that the systems with the confiner perform much better than those without it. Thus, the drying time decreases considerably and the pressure drop and air flow rate decrease slightly when the confiner is used. The drying performance of the open-sided draft tube is superior to any other configuration, i.e., the drying time required with this tube is the shortest. Nonporous draft tubes are the worst option due to their poor gas-solid contact. Porous draft tubes have an intermediate performance. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.