Drying in the rotating-pulsed fluidized bed

Abstract

There are particulate materials that are cohesive when wet. Although they are Geldart's group A dry powders, they show difficulties in fluidizing in a conventional fluidized bed, which could be diminished by modifying the fluidization equipment. Therefore, the objective of this work was to study the drying of cohesive particulate material using a rotating-pulsed fluidized bed. The material used in the drying study was 2-hydroxybenzoic acid because its cohesive forces are stronger when wet. The drying experiments were carried out according to the following parameters: frequency of disk (5 and 15 Hz), initial moisture content of the material (high and low) and gas temperature at 85°C. From the drying kinetic curves and visual observations during the experiments, it could be concluded that the rotating-pulsed fluidized bed is an alternative for the processing of cohesive solids that preserves the final quality of the dry solids.