Investigation of electrical field effect on the fluidization characteristics in a two-dimensional fluidized bed

Abstract

Electrostatic charge accumulation in a gas–solid fluidized bed is considered an adverse effect. However, with the presence of an external electrical field, we can take advantage of electrostatic charging to separate charged particles according to their polarity. In this paper, we proposed a bench-scale two-dimensional fluidized bed with an external electrical field. We then systematically investigated the tribo-charging behavior of anthracite-quartz mixture in the fluidized bed at different conditions and the effect of the external electrical field on their fluidization characteristics. Subsequently, an orthogonal design of experiments analysis was implemented to find the optimized parameters of gas velocity, plate voltage, and initial bed height to separate bituminous coal particles. These findings provide a dry method to separate coal particles from their associated minerals using the proposed two-dimensional fluidized bed with an external electrical field and have general implications for the triboelectric separation of various materials.