Estudo hidrodinâmico de leitos fluidizados em laboratório

Abstract

In the chemical industry, the fluidized beds have a wide application at most chemical and physicals processes such as distillation, absorption, desorption, extraction, filtration, drying and etc. This operation consists of a tower, normally cylindrical, filled with porous solid particles (normally is a catalyst). These pores form flow channels through which a fluid flows upwards, respecting the hydrodynamic laws according for to the applied flow. In the present day, the Chemical Engineering Laboratory at Technology Superior School of Amazonas State University has a fluidization equipment on a pilot scale, it consisting of two columns for operation, one with gas (air) and other with liquid (water). For the development of the work, for each column, were formed beds with different amounts (300g, 250g and 200g) of particles (spherical glass particles). It was possible to observe, with the experiment that behavior regimes of the beds with different amounts of particles are similar, once that, the other variables of the operation were constants. Through the obtained experimental data, it was possible to elaborate the experimental curves and to determine the minimum points of fluidization and bubbling, thus acquiring, a homogeneous fluidization range. For the bed fluidization with water, acquired an increase range of 49% after the minimum velocity of fluidization. For gas fluidization, the range was only 12%. Subsequently, with the comparative analysis between the experimental and theorical curves, it was possible to observe that an operation with fluidization in water suffers less interference of the particle proprieties than a fluidization with air, it becoming more expected.