Novel technique for measurement of coating layer thickness of fine and porous particles using focused ion beam

A novel technique for the measurement of the coating layer thickness of fine particles was developed in this work based on cross-sectioning of micrometre-sized single coated particles using focused ion beam (FIB) milling. This technique was tested on two batches of aerogel particles coated with thin coatings in a spouted bed. The FIB milling procedure consisted of two steps. First, the desired part of the coated particle was removed using a high ion beam current. The resulting cross-sectioned area was then polished using a lower ion beam current to make the cross-section clearly visible. The FIB milling process was controlled with simultaneous scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Afterwards, the coating layer thickness was evaluated using the SEM images. The coating layer was successfully applied on the porous aerogel microparticles in the spouted bed. The coating uniformity of the highly porous particles increased with increasing sprayed coating solution amount, with up to 91% of the particle pores being covered. The FIB-cross-sectioning technique using an ion beam of 2.50 nA for the first milling and 0.43 nA for polishing of the surface resulted in successful generation of cross-sections of representative particles with a visible particle core and coating layer. A coating layer thickness of approximately 700 nm was achieved on particles with sizes of below 45 μm.

Influence of zone formation on stability of continuous fluidized bed layering granulation with external product classification

Continuous fluidized bed layering granulation with external product classification and a sieve-mill cycle can show instability in the form of self-sustained nonlinear oscillations of the particle size distribution. In the present study, the stability and bifurcation analysis of this process is presented. The underlying process models explicitly account for compartmentalization of the fluidized bed into a granulation and a drying zone, which is an important feature of many technical processes. Implications for plant operations are discussed with the help of stability diagrams as a function of zone size, residence time within different zones, the addition of external seeds and particular properties of the sieve-mill cycle.

Coefficient of restitution for particles impacting on wet surfaces： An improved experimental approach

The coefficient of restitution is widely used to characterize the energy dissipation rate in numerical simulations involving particle collisions. The challenge in measuring the coefficient of restitution is the strong scatter seen in experimental data that results from varying particle properties, i.e. shape and surface roughness, and from imperfections in the experimental technique. To minimize this scattering, a novel experimental setup was developed based on two synchronized high-speed cameras capturing the collision behaviour of a particle in three dimensions. To measure the wet restitution coefficient, which describes particle impact in the presence of a liquid layer in the contact region, additional accuracy can be achieved by measuring the liquid layer thickness by a high-precision optical confocal sensor. The coefficient of restitution was measured for glass particles with two different diameters, at different relative velocities and liquid layer thicknesses, with a focus on small collision velocities and thin liquid layers, using both the improved （three dimensional） and the conventional （two dimensional） approaches to quantify the improvement of the new method＇s accuracy.

Production of composites with high relative permittivity using the spouted bed technique

This contribution presents a new application of the spouted bed technique. The developed production process involves coating fine copper particles with a polymer in a spouted bed plant and then hot pressing the produced granules to form a compact consisting of a copper–polymer composite with a high filling degree. The fabricated composites possess high relative permittivity, which is advantageous for the production of effective capacitors. With increasing filling degree of copper, the relative permittivity of the composites increased, with a maximum relative permittivity of 214 obtained for the composite containing 78.1 vol% copper. Such a high filling degree can be achieved with conductive particles without obtaining a conductive composite by using the spouted bed technology in the production process. The high relative permittivity results from the high filling degree of particles isolated by a polymer coating.

A dynamic two-zone model of continuous fluidized bed layering granulation with internal product classification

A dynamic two-zone model is proposed to address the formation of granulation and drying zones in fluidized bed layering granulation processes with internal product classification. The model assumes a constant volume for the granulation zone, but a variable overall volume for the fluidized bed to account for classified product removal. The model is used to study the effect of various process parameters on dynamics and process stability. Stability is shown to depend on the separation diameter of product removal and the flow rate of the injected liquid. A lower and upper range of separation diameters with stable process behavior are found. In an intermediate range instability in the form of self-sustained oscillations is observed. The lower stability boundary is in qualitative agreement with recent experimental observations （Schmidt, Bück, ＆ Tsotsas, 2015）; the upper boundary was reported in a theoretical paper by Vreman, Van Lare, and Hounslow （2009） based on a single zone model.