Abstract
Currently, various industrial processes are carried out in fluidized bed reactors. Knowing its internal dynamics is fundamental for the intensification of these processes. This work assesses the motion of fluidized calcium alginate spheres under the influence of an upward fluid flow within a 1.2 m high and 0.1 m inner diameter acrylic column. The liquid–solid fluidized bed was compared with a gas–liquid–solid fluidized bed operation mode in terms of mixing behavior. The radioactive particle tracking technique is a proper methodology to study the internal dynamics of these kinds of equipment. Data gathered were analyzed with Shannon entropy as a dynamic mixing measure. Mixing times were found to be between 1 and 2.5 seconds for both fluidization modes. The liquid–solid fluidized bed presents a rather smooth mixing time profile along the column. On the other hand, the gas–liquid–solid fluidized bed showed high sensitivity of entropy production with height, reaching a sharp tendency break at the second quartile of the column. The Glansdorff–Prigogine stability measure can accurately capture flow regime transitions of the gas–liquid–solid fluidized bed, allowing it to be used to construct reliable operative windows for fluidization equipment.
Highlights
Fluidization has a long history of utility for mineral sorting and has been used for this purpose for several hundreds of years [1,2]
The method of tracking a single radioactive particle consists of simultaneously counting the number of gamma rays that arrive from a stable tracer in motion to a set of high-energy radiation detectors strategically located around the equipment under study
Resultsindicate indicatethe thesame sameorder orderof ofmagnitude magnitudebut butdifferent differentaxial axialtrends trendsfor formixing mixing times determined for the compared to the it should be recalled that times timesdetermined determinedfor forthe theLSFB
Summary
Fluidization has a long history of utility for mineral sorting and has been used for this purpose for several hundreds of years [1,2]. The use of expanded beds allows for better homogenization of the cell culture media Methodologies such as adsorption or fluidized bed chromatography are currently being established [5,6], which have had promising results in the extraction of biological products of industrial interest, given the reduction in the operating volume [7,8,9]. Their underlying dynamics are fundamental for properly designing the units and implementing process intensification strategies [10,11]. Such dynamics are governed by body forces (gravity, buoyancy) and external friction forces
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