Separation of Mixtures in Mass Transfer Applications by Fluidization

S. M. Subhani; B. Srinivas

Abstract: Fluidization is an operation by which fine granular solids are transformed into a fluid-like state through contact with a fluid. This operation has proved very useful in the movement of granular solid particles through a series of steps in continuous fashion. When a liquid or gas is passed at very low velocity up through a bed of solid particles; the particle do not fluid velocity move; and the pressure drop is given by the Ergun equation. If the fluid velocity is steadily increased; the pressure drop and the drag on individual particle increase; and eventually the particles start to move and become suspended in the fluid. Separations of mixtures of solids are done by: 1. Screening 2. Froth Floatation 3. Jigging 4. WIlfley table 5. Cyclone Seperator etc?.. In this work; fluidization is tried to separate solid mixtures of different sizes and densities. There is not enough literature on this separation topic up to now. An equation is formulated to calculate the separation amount based on dimensional analysis and experiments. The error is using this equation is 22%.This work is useful to separate large amount of solids; like in industries and in business houses economically.

Keywords: Fluidization of binaries; minimum fluidization velocity; binary solids fluidization; pressure drop; different particle sizes