Computational fluid dynamics simulation of adsorption process in a liquid-solids fluidized bed

Abstract

For simultaneously predicting the hydrodynamics and protein adsorption process in a liquid-solids fluidized bed (LSFB), a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model is established by combining the two-fluid model (TFM) for the liquid-particles two-phase fluidization system with the c2¯−εc model for the turbulent mass transfer. In terms of hydrodynamics, the kl−εl−kp−εp−Θ equations are adopted to describe phases turbulence. The simulations of hydrodynamics using various drag models and different modelling parameters are conducted to test their sensitivity. Then for the adsorption process, the recently developed formulations of the c2¯−εc model are adopted to characterize rigorously the turbulent mass diffusion in LSFB. With the proposed model, the velocity field as well as the concentration field can be acquired. Simulated results are compared with the experimental data and a good agreement between them is found.