Experimental and theoretical study on the agglomeration arising from fluidization of cohesive particles - Effects of mechanical vibration

Chunbao Xu, Jesse Zhu

Research output: Journal PublicationArticlepeer-review

106 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

A novel technique that can prevent the disruption of agglomerates when sampling the agglomerates from a fluidized bed has been developed and has been applied to the investigation of the agglomeration behaviour of cohesive particles during fluidization with and without mechanical vibration. A new model for the prediction of agglomerate size has also been established on the basis of the energy balance between the agglomerate collision energy, the energy due to cohesive forces and the energy generated by vibration. The accuracy of the model is tested by comparing the theoretical results with the experimental data obtained both in the present work and in the literature. Effects of gas velocity and mechanical vibration on agglomeration for two cohesive (Geldart group C) powders in fluidization are examined experimentally and theoretically. The experimental results prove that mechanical vibration can significantly reduce both the average size and the degree of the size-segregation of the agglomerates throughout the whole bed. However, the experiments also reveal that the mean agglomerate size decreases initially with the vibration intensity, but increases gradually as the vibration intensity exceeds a critical value. This suggests that the vibration cannot only facilitate breaking the agglomerates due to the increased agglomerate collision energy but can also favour the growth of the agglomerates due to the enhanced contacting probability between particles and/or agglomerates. Both the experimental and theoretical results show that a higher gas velocity leads to a smaller agglomerate size.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)6529-6541
Number of pages13
JournalChemical Engineering Science
Volume60
Issue number23
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2005
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Agglomeration
  • Cohesive particles
  • Fluidization
  • Mechanical vibration
  • Modelling

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Chemistry
  • General Chemical Engineering
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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