Journal of Bioprocessing & Biotechniques

Hydrodynamics of Liquid-Solid Semi-fluidized Bed with Regular Homogenous Ternary Mixture

Abstract

Samal DK, Mohanty YK, Roy GK

Hydrodynamics studies in Semi-fluidized bed relating to bed pressure drop, height of top packed bed, minimum and maximum semi-fluidization velocities with regular (spherical glass beads) homogeneous ternary mixtures, have been made in 0.01, 0.025, 0.037, 0.05, and 0.065 m internal diameter Perspex columns, with water as the fluidizing medium. Ternary mixtures of glass beads of different sizes (-8+10, -10+12 and -12+14 BSS) have been used as the semi-fluidized solids. Experimental studies relate to establish the effect of system parameters viz. column diameter, average particle size of semi-fluidized solid and initial static bed height and operating parameters viz. superficial liquid velocity and bed expansion ratio on the above mentioned system variables. Empirical and semi-empirical models have been developed using dimensional as well as statistical analyses. The calculated values from the predicted models have been compared with their experimental counterparts and fairly good agreement has been obtained. The results have also been compared with those available in the literature for irregular homogenous ternary mixtures.