Hydrodynamic Characteristics of a Gas- Liquid –Solid Fluidized Bed Containing a Binary Mixture of Particles

Abstract

The present work is an experimental study on the effect of solid loading andsolid properties of both single and binary mixtures on the hydrodynamic parameters(gas holdup and bubble dynamics) of a fluidized bed bubble column. The experimentswere performed in a QVF glass made column of 15 cm diameter. Wide range of solidparticle diameters (0.5 to 3mm) with two different densities(i.e., 1025 and 1150 kg/m3 ) were investigated for the bubble effect on gas holdup andbubble dynamics using air with different gas superficial velocities ( 3 to 9 cm/s). Abinary mixture consisting of different compositions of solid particles was prepared tobe utilized in the study. It was observed that for specified operating conditions used inthe experiments there is a proportional relationship between gas holdup and bothsuperficial gas velocity and particle diameter while an inverse relationship existsbetween gas holdup and both solid concentration and particles density. Bubbledynamics (i.e., bubble diameter and bubble rise velocity) is looked at from a differentview point, it increases with increasing solid concentration and with decreasingparticles diameter.