Fluidization and separation characteristics of a gas–solid separation fluidized bed in the presence of an acoustic field

Abstract

The bed fluidization characteristics, such as pressure drop, minimum fluidization gas velocity, density, and voidage, play a vital role in understanding the hydrodynamic behavior of fluidization technologies. In this work, the variation in the bed pressure drop was analyzed in presence and absence of an acoustic field. Meanwhile, the minimum fluidization gas velocity was investigated for five different fine particle (−0.074 mm) contents as the acoustic source varied between 90 and 150 Hz, and the sound pressure level was within a range of 100–135 dB. The experimental results show that, upon an increase in the fine-grained particle (−0.074 mm) content, the sound frequency and sound pressure level have different effects on the minimum fluidization gas velocity. The introduction of an acoustic wave can effectively ensure the stability of the bed density, thus improving the separation performance of a gas–solid separation fluidized bed, with a lower probable error E.