A Draft-Tube Conical Spouted Bed for Drying Fine Particles

Abstract

A study has been conducted on the performance of a draft tube conical spouted bed for drying fine particles. Batch operation has been performed with nonporous, porous, and open-sided draft tubes in order to ascertain the optimum configuration of this internal device. The nonporous draft tube requires the lowest minimum spouting velocity. Nevertheless, the solid circulation rate and the drying efficiency of the open-sided draft tube are superior to any other spouted bed configuration. Moreover, it allows for reducing the height of the fountain and, consequently, the height of the drying equipment.

Keywords:

• Conical spouted bed
• Drying
• Fluidization
• Hydrodynamics

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was carried out with the financial support of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Spanish Government (Project CTQ2004-01562/PPQ) and of the Ministry of Industry of the Basque Government (Project IE05-149)