IMPEDIMENT TO INCIPIENT FLUIDIZATION IN WET BEDS OF POROUS NONSPHERICAL PARTICLES

Fluidized-bed units are efficiently and advantageously employed for drying various wet and sticky particulate materials provided that the bed of such materials can be kept under a fluidized condition. The effect was explored with the incremental addition of water to the bed of nonspherical, porous particles of ceramsite and lignite fluidized with wet air. The limiting fluidization-defluidization point was determined by experiments in a cold model fluidized bed contained in a transparent glass column using wet and dry particles. On the basis of the data amassed, an empirical correlation was developed. This relationship makes it possible to predict the dimensionless excess gas velocity that keeps the wet bed fluidized, as a function of the relative amount of moisture in the bed and the dimensionless particle size.