Top-spray fluid bed coating: Scale-up in terms of relative droplet size and drying force

Top-spray fluid bed coating scale-up experiments have been performed in three scales in order to test the validity of two parameters as possible scaling parameters: The drying force and the relative droplet size. The aim was to be able to reproduce the degree of agglomeration as well as the mechanical properties of the coated granules across scale. Two types of placebo enzyme granule cores were tested being non-porous glass ballotini cores (180–350 μm) and low porosity sodium sulphate cores (180–350 μm). Both types of core materials were coated with aqueous solutions of Na₂SO₄ using Dextrin as binder. Coating experiments were repeated for various drying force and relative droplet size values in three top-spray fluid bed scales being a small-scale (Type: GEA Aeromatic-Fielder Strea-1), medium-scale (Type: Niro MP-1) and large-scale (Type: GEA MP-2/3). The tendency of agglomeration was assessed in terms of particle size fractions larger than 425 μm determined by sieve analysis. Results indicated that the particle size distribution may be reproduced across scale with statistical valid precision by keeping the drying force and the relative droplet size constant across scale. It is also shown that none of the two parameters alone may be used for successful scaling. Morphology and microscope studies indicated that the coating layer is homogenous and has similar structures across scale only when both the drying force and the relative droplet size were fixed. Impact and attrition tests indicated that it is possible to produce granules with similar attrition and impact strength across scale and that the two types of mechanical properties are inversely related.     

Computational fluid dynamic simulation of gas-liquid flow in rotating packed bed:A review

The rotating packed bed (RPB) has been widely used in gas-liquid flow systems as a process intensifica-tion device,exhibiting excellent mass transfer enhancement characteristics.However,the complex inter-nal structure and the high-speed rotation of the rotor in RPB bring significant challenges to study the intensification mechanism by experiment methods.In the past two decades,Computational fluid dynam-ics (CFD) has been gradually applied to simulate the hydrodynamics and mass transfer characteristics in RPB and instruct the reactor design.This article covers the development of the CFD simulation of gas-liquid flow in RPB.Firstly,the improvement of the simulation method in the aspect of mathematical mod-els,geometric models,and solving methods is introduced.Secondly,new progress of CFD simulation about hydrodynamic and mass transfer characteristics in RPB is reviewed,including pressure drop,veloc-ity distribution,flow pattern,and concentration distribution,etc.Some new phenomena such as the end effect area with the maximum turbulent have been revealed by this works.In addition,the exploration of developing new reactor structures by CFD simulation is introduced and it is proved that such new struc-tures are competitive to different applications.The defects of current research and future development directions are also discussed at last.     

Two-fluid spray atomisation and pneumatic nozzles for fluid bed coating/agglomeration purposes: A review

In fluid bed processing in the chemical, food or pharmaceutical industries, pneumatic nozzles are typically used to convert binder or coating liquids into droplets. Producing fine droplets from liquids in a gas phase is termed atomisation, and it involves complex phenomena which are not yet fully understood. This paper provides a systematic and up-to-date review of two-fluid nozzle designs and principles together with a presentation of nozzle fundamentals introducing basic nozzle theory and thermodynamics. Correlations for the prediction of mean droplet diameters are reviewed, compared and accompanied by a discussion of their use.     

Fluidized bed spray granulation: Analysis of the system behaviour by means of dynamic flowsheet simulation

Nowadays, software tools for the flowsheet simulation of industrial processes are commonly used for design, simulation, balancing, troubleshooting and optimization purposes. Most of the tools are applicable to fluid processes only and cannot be effectively used for processes which involve solids.In this contribution we want to present the conceptual design of a new system applicable for the dynamic flowsheet simulation of complex solids processes. This system is developed as an enhancement to the existing simulation program.The novel software is able to simulate the unsteady behaviour of complex circuits of granulation processes. The transient behaviour during the start-up and changing of the process or material parameters can also be examined.As flowsheet examples, a typical spray granulation process with different schemes consisting of fluidized bed granulators, screens, mill and splitters was used. The mathematical model of the fluidized bed granulator is described by a one-dimensional population balance equation and coupled with heat and mass transfer and simple fluid dynamics.Received simulation results have shown that the proposed concept of the dynamic flowsheet simulation of granulation processes can be used effectively and has the potential to be generalized for other types of solids processes.     

Investigating the dynamic behaviour of fluidized bed spray granulation processes applying numerical simulation tools

Particulate processes involve different kinetic processes such as formation of nuclei, their subsequent growth and breakage. In addition, external product classification can play a significant role. A reliable prediction and thorough understanding of potential sources for instability is not only of scientific interest but also an important issue for better process design and process control.The application of these nonlinear dynamics is concerned with fluidized bed spray granulation. Self-sustained oscillations may rise in processes with external product classification.Therefore, focus of this work is on process stability which can be influenced by classifying, milling and recycling of particles and by the production of internal and external seeds.First a brief introduction to the model is given, that couples the particle population state with thermodynamic-, fluiddynamic- and granulation process for a unit with non-classifying product discharge and a screening and milling unit in the seed recycle and builds the core of the software package AVA^®FBSim^®, used for the experiments.     

Design, simulation, and performance of a draft tube spout fluid bed coating system for aerogel particles

A draft tube spout fluid bed coating system was designed to coat porous aerogel particles in a size range from 0.1 to 2 mm in diameter. Its primary objective was to insure that just the outer surface of the particles was coated. The inner, pore surface area of the particles needed to remain open to preserve their insulating properties. This paper discusses the design, simulation, and experimental results we obtained on the actual coating of 1-3 mm particles. A conventional, pharmaceutical coating, Surelease®, was used as the coating material and the system successfully coated the particles without penetration of the coating material into the particles. The apparatus can be used to coat friable, low density particles as well as those of high density and is well suited for other coating applications including those in the pharmaceutical industry.     

Wall to liquid mass transport and diffusion controlled corrosion in fixed bed reactors

The diffusion controlled corrosion at the inner wall of a fixed bed reactor was studied in terms of the wall to liquid mass transfer coefficient. Variables studied are solution flow rate, physical properties, and packing size and geometry. The effect of drag reducing polymers on the rate of mass transfer and on the rate of corrosion was studied. The presence of the drag reducing polymer decreased the rate of both mass transfer and corrosion by a factor ranging from 8.92% to 39.47%. All variables were correlated by dimensionless equations. Possible applications of these data in heat transfer were highlighted.     

Fluidized bed coating and granulation: influence of process-related variables and physicochemical properties on the growth kinetics

This study, which deals with the coating and granulation of solid particles by aqueous solutions of polymers or inorganic salts, aims to understand the effect of:

process-related variables such as the excess gas velocity, atomizer location, liquid flow rate and concentration, and atomizing air flow rate,

physicochemical-related variables such as the viscosity of solutions, wettability of the granulating liquid on solid particle surfaces, initial particle mean size, and porosity of the particles on the agglomeration kinetics of solid particles in a fluidized bed.

The results showed that for a given particle size, the fluidizing air velocity was the most important factor affecting the growth kinetics and the stability of the operation. An increase of the relative humidity, depending on the liquid flow rate as well as the air flow rate, favor agglomeration mechanism especially for values greater than 0.4. An increase in the particle initial size leads to an enhancement of the layering mechanism, especially for values greater than 300 μm.

The effect of the interfacial tension is investigated by adding different concentrations of a non-ionic surfactant to the binding solution. The effect of the contact angle is then studied using non-hydrophobic, partly hydrophobic, or totally hydrophobic particles. The growth of agglomerates appears to be favoured when the interfacial tension increases and the contact angle decreases. The viscosity of the solution has less effect than the interfacial parameters. The results show that the dominant forces in the granulation process are the capillary forces.     

Modeling and simulation of heat and mass transfer during drying of solids with hemispherical shell geometry

A heat and mass transfer model was proposed to describe the moisture and temperature evolution during drying of solid products with hemispherical shell geometry (HSG). The dimensionless form of the model was numerically solved for both several drying conditions and values of a geometrical factor related with the inner radius of the HSG to obtain their moisture and temperature profiles. In addition, average drying kinetics were calculated from the volume integration of local moisture values. A theoretical and numerical approach was used to develop a mass transfer analogy between the proposed HSG and a simpler flat slab-shaped product. These analogies provide simple mathematical expressions for drying process simulation and estimation of diffusion coefficients in solids with the proposed geometry, and may be applicable to other mass and heat transfer operations. Furthermore, the presented procedure may be used to develop similar expressions in other non-traditional or dissection geometries.     

Drying characteristics of porous material immersed in a bed of hygroscopic porous particles fluidized under reduced pressure

A relatively large wet material was immersed in a fluidized bed of hygroscopic porous particle (silica gel beads) under reduced pressure. And then the drying characteristics were compared with those in the case of inert particle (glass beads). The comparison of drying characteristics is performed experimentally and theoretically. In calculation, the water transfer from the sample to the fluidized bed was considered. The calculation results are in good agreement with the experimental data. The effects of the operational conditions (the pressure in the drying chamber and the temperature of the drying gas) on the drying characteristics were also examined in both fluidizing particles.The drying finishes earlier in the case of hygroscopic porous particle than in the case of inert particle regardless of pressure in the drying chamber, since the water transfer from the sample facilitates the drying in the case of hygroscopic porous particles. The temperature decrement in drying appears in the case of inert particle. This phenomenon is also observed in the case of hygroscopic porous particle, but the decrement degree of the temperature is much smaller than that in the case of inert particle. The difference of the minimum temperature in the sample in drying between the cases of hygroscopic porous particle and inert particle is very slight for different pressures in the drying chamber.     

Modelling of direct-contact evaporation using a simultaneous heat and multicomponent mass-transfer model for superheated bubbles

A recently developed model for coupled heat and mass transfer in binary systems during the formation and ascension of superheated bubbles was extended to a multicomponent system comprising N volatile species. The model allows variable properties and bubble radius changes, assuming diffusive mass fluxes to be properly described by Fick's law. Experimental direct-contact evaporation tests were conducted with ethyl acetate aqueous solutions to provide data for assessing the developed model. In addition, the model was tested against available literature data for an air-stripper. In both cases, a good agreement between simulation and experimental results was verified.     

Predicting drying kinetic and undesired agglomeration during drying of granules containing amorphous water-soluble substances in a continuous horizontal fluid bed dryer

Various industries use fluid bed dryers for the drying of larger granules produced by extrusion, pan agglomeration or spray granulation. During such drying processes secondary agglomeration is undesired due to an increasing amount of oversize particles. In the current study the drying of granules containing amorphous substances is modelled. The model is based on the laws of heat and mass transfer as well as heat and mass balances around a differential volume element of the fluid bed. For each location in the bed and for different drying parameters the calculated moisture and temperature values are used to estimate the surface viscosity of the granules. The calculated viscosity allows estimating the risk of secondary agglomeration of granules. Viscosity values which are estimated for different drying conditions are compared with the experimentally determined amount of oversize particles. An increasing amount of oversize particles can be observed if the viscosity of the amorphous substance is below 10⁴ Pa s.     

Convective heat and mass transfer coefficient measurements and correlations for particle beds using temperature and humidity step changes with air flow through a test bed

In this paper, transient responses of a porous urea particle bed subject to a step change in the inlet temperature or humidity for a forced convective air flow through the particle bed are investigated to determine the convective heat and mass transfer coefficients inversely by comparing the measured time constant with the predicted characteristic time constant, which is a function of the convection coefficients and Reynolds number. The experimental results show, that although both the time constants for temperature and humidity step changes are dependent on Reynolds number, the temperature response time constant (35-1300 s) is much larger than the humidity response time constant (4-25 s) for the Reynolds number range of 300-5. The surface adsorption of water vapor is very rapid but the absorption inside the porous urea particle is slowed by a very low internal effective diffusion coefficient within the particles whereas the very low Biot number for heat transfer in the particles implies a complete thermal interaction with the air flow throughout each particle and a much larger time constant. Empirical correlations of the Chilton-Colburn j-factor and Nusselt number versus Reynolds number are compared with the correlations of other researchers. These new correlations, which include an uncertainty analysis, imply much lower convective coefficients than those reported previously in the literature.     

Modeling and Numerical Analysis of an Atypical Convective Coal Drying Process

This work presents modeling and numerical simulation of batch convective coal drying in a deep packed bed after a high-pressure steam treatment (a part of the Fleissner coal drying process). The process is atypical, because ambient air is used to dry and cool hot particles, while usually, e.g., in the deep packed bed drying of biomaterials, hot air is contacting cold particles. Product-specific data (intraparticle mass transfer, gas-solids moisture equilibrium) for coal (here lignite) are taken over from literature. Available data on coal drying in packed beds of medium height are used for model validation. Then, the model is applied to the considered industrial process. The design point of the process is critically reviewed, and alternatives are developed by systematically simulating the influence of inlet air conditions (temperature, humidity, flow-rate) and coal particle size. This type of analysis is necessary for efficiently scheduling plant dryers, since coal particle size may change, and air inlet temperature and humidity are changing with the ambient conditions.     

CFD study on particle-to-fluid heat transfer in fixed bed reactors: Convective heat transfer at low and high pressure

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has proven to be a reliable tool for fixed bed reactor design, through the resolution of 3D transport equations for mass, momentum and energy balances. Solution of these equations allow to obtain velocity and temperature profiles within the reactor. The numerical results obtained allow estimating useful parameters applicable to equipment design. Particle-to-fluid heat transfer coefficient is of primal importance when analyzing the performance of a fixed bed reactor. To gain insight in this subject, numerical results using a modified commercial CFD solver are presented and particle-to-fluid heat transfer in fixed beds is analyzed. Two different configurations are studied: forced convection at low pressure (with air as circulating fluid) and mixed (i.e., free+forced) convection at high pressure (with supercritical CO₂ as circulating fluid). In order to impose supercritical fluid properties to the model, modifications into the CFD code were introduced by means of user defined functions (UDF) and user defined equations (UDE). The obtained numerical data is compared to previously published data and a novel CFD-based correlation (for free, forced and mixed convection at high pressure) is presented.     

Computational modelling of the impact of particle size to the heat transfer coefficient between biomass particles and a fluidised bed

The fluid-particle interaction and the impact of different heat transfer conditions on pyrolysis of biomass inside a 150 g/h fluidised bed reactor are modelled. Two different size biomass particles (350 μm and 550 μm in diameter) are injected into the fluidised bed. The different biomass particle sizes result in different heat transfer conditions. This is due to the fact that the 350 μm diameter particle is smaller than the sand particles of the reactor (440 μm), while the 550 μm one is larger. The bed-to-particle heat transfer for both cases is calculated according to the literature. Conductive heat transfer is assumed for the larger biomass particle (550 μm) inside the bed, while biomass-sand contacts for the smaller biomass particle (350 μm) were considered unimportant. The Eulerian approach is used to model the bubbling behaviour of the sand, which is treated as a continuum. Biomass reaction kinetics is modelled according to the literature using a two-stage, semi-global model which takes into account secondary reactions. The particle motion inside the reactor is computed using drag laws, dependent on the local volume fraction of each phase. FLUENT 6.2 has been used as the modelling framework of the simulations with the whole pyrolysis model incorporated in the form of User Defined Function (UDF).     

Reaction Engineering Approach (REA) to Modeling Drying Problems: Recent Development and Implementations

Among the drying models available in the literature, the REA model (which was first proposed in 1996) is semi-empirical. It was described based upon a basic physical chemistry principle. The “extraction of water from moist material” is signified by applying the activation energy concept. The single expression of the extraction rate represents the competition between evaporation and condensation. It also encompasses the internal specific surface area and mass transfer coefficient, and thus is linked to material characteristics. The REA can be classified into two categories—Lumped (L) REA and Spatial (S) REA—which can be used to deal with drying a material as a whole or considering the local phenomena within the material, respectively. Both models have been proven to be very effective. The REA is effective for generating parameters since only one accurate drying run is required to establish the relative activation energy function. Both internal and external resistances are modeled by the REA. In its lumped format, the REA is employed to describe the global drying rate, while in the S-REA, the REA is used to model the local evaporation rate. This article covers fundamentals of the REA which have not been fully explained, as well as the most recent development and applications. The application of the S-REA as a non-equilibrium multiphase model is highlighted.     

CFD modelling of the fast pyrolysis of biomass in fluidised bed reactors. Part B: Heat, momentum and mass transport in bubbling fluidised beds

The fluid-particle interaction inside a 150 g/h fluidised bed reactor is modelled. The biomass particle is injected into the fluidised bed and the heat, momentum and mass transport from the fluidising gas and fluidised sand is modelled. The Eulerian approach is used to model the bubbling behaviour of the sand, which is treated as a continuum. Heat transfer from the bubbling bed to the discrete biomass particle, as well as biomass reaction kinetics are modelled according to the literature. The particle motion inside the reactor is computed using drag laws, dependent on the local volume fraction of each phase. FLUENT 6.2 has been used as the modelling framework of the simulations with the whole pyrolysis model incorporated in the form of user-defined function (UDF). The study completes the fast pyrolysis modelling in bubbling fluidised bed reactors.