Hydrodynamics of particles in liquid–solid packed fluidized bed

• umf of the particles in liquid–solid packed fluidized bed is lower than that in unary fluidized bed.
• With an increase in volume fraction of the particles in voids of stationary pebbles bed umf decreases.
• With an increase in temperature, umf increases, but for gas–solid packed fluidized bed it decreases.
• Correlation for gas–solid packed fluidized bed is also valid for liquid–solid packed fluidized bed.

Hydrodynamic properties of different particles in unary liquid–solid fluidized bed were well studied and are reported in literature. However, till date the same in liquid–solid binary packed fluidized bed has not been studied and no information is available in literature. Presently, it is well known that particles behave differently in a gas–solid packed fluidized bed; than in a unary gas–solid fluidized bed. A series of experiments were conducted to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of particles in liquid–solid packed fluidized bed as a function of particle size, fraction of interstitial void volume filled by particles and bed wall temperature. It was found that, like in gas–solid packed fluidized bed; the minimum fluidization velocity of particles in liquid–solid packed fluidized bed is lower than that of particles in conventional unary liquid–solid fluidized bed, but unlike gas–solid system, the minimum fluidization velocity increases with an increase in bed wall temperature. Experimental details and results are discussed in this paper.

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