Design aspect of a novel L-shaped pulsed column for liquid–liquid extraction applications: Energy consumption and the characteristics velocity concept

This article deals with the evaluation of the consumption of energy for a steady state solvent extraction in a novel L-shaped pulsed sieve-plate column, which is highly required for design and optimization of the periodic flow processes for industrial applications. In this regard, a comprehensive evaluation on the energy consumption in case of a pulsed flow for three different chemical systems is conducted and besides the influence of pulsation intensity, the effect of geometrical parameters including the plate spacing and the plate free area is investigated as well. Moreover, the concept of characteristic velocity models at flooding points is evaluated with respect to the variation of pressure drop along the column at different operational conditions.

Effect of agitation on the characteristics of air dense medium fluidization

In order to study the effect of agitation on the characteristics of air dense medium fluidization, we designed and constructed an agitation device. Analyses were then conducted on the fluidization characteristics curves, the bed density stability and the average bubble rise velocity Uaunder different agitation conditions. The results indicated that a lower bed pressure drop(without considering lower gas velocity in a fixed bed stage) and higher minimum fluidized velocity are achieved with increasing agitation speed.The height d(distance between the lower blades and air distribution plate) at which the agitation paddle was located had a considerable effect on the stability of the bed density at 9.36 cm/s < U < 10.70 cm/s. The higher the value of d, the better the stability, and the standard deviation of the bed density fluctuation r dropped to 0.0364 g/cm^3 at the ideal condition of d = 40 mm. The agitation speed also had a significant influence on the fluidization performance, and r was only 0.0286 g/cm^3 at an agitation speed of N = 75 r/min. The average bubble rise velocity decreased significantly with increasing agitation speed under the operating condition of 1.50 cm/s < U–U_(mf)< 3.50 cm/s. This shows that appropriate agitation contributes to a significant improvement in the fluidization quality in a fluidized bed, and enhances the separation performance of a fluidized bed.

Experimental and numerical study of installing a dune model in a 90° bend in the horizontal-vertical pneumatic conveying system

In the pneumatic conveying process,particles move to the bend under the influence of inertia to form a particle rope,which will cause serious wear between the particles and the pipe wall,and then the dune model is designed and installed in the 90° bend to reduce energy consumption and wear in this study.Firstly,the minimum pressure drop velocity of particles transported by different size dune models was obtained through experimental study.Then the energy saving mechanism of the dune model is studied by CFD-DEM coupling.The experimental results show that the installation of the dune model reduces the minimum pressure drop velocity.The numerical simulation results show that the number of collisions between the particles and the tube wall in the vertical tube decreases after the installation of the dune model,which reduces the energy loss.Moreover,the increasing of tail size of the dune model is beneficial to the diffusion and acceleration of the particles in the vertical tube.