Studies on biomass drying apparatus using swirling fluidization technique
Drying of biomass is crucial prior utilizing its high intrinsic and readily available energy. The reduction of moisture content is mandatory to increase overall energy efficiency and reduce emission in systems operating with biomass, especially during combustion or gasification. One of the establish...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
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| Online Access: | http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/2838/ http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/2838/1/014%2D018.pdf |
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| Summary: | Drying of biomass is crucial prior
utilizing its high intrinsic and readily available
energy. The reduction of moisture content is
mandatory to increase overall energy efficiency
and reduce emission in systems operating with
biomass, especially during combustion or
gasification. One of the established methods of
drying biomass is through fluidized bed drying.
As such, the current work addresses the
development of a biomass drying apparatus,
designated as the swirling fluidized bed dryer
(SFBD). The SFBD features an annular bed with
inclined injection of gas through an array of
blades which acts as the hot air distributor, which
then imparts the swirling motion to the bed. This
secondary motion inside the bed promotes the
highly desired mixing and solid-fluid contact. The
performance of SFBD was studied in terms of its
hydrodynamic characteristic using PVC beads
before tested with actual biomass from palm
frond. The results show that SFBD exhibits
excellent hydrodynamic characteristic with
distributor to bed pressure drop ratio less then
10%. It is also found that bed pressure drop is
proportional with superficial velocity of hot air,
but still reasonably low for bed weight up to 2 kg.
The findings lead to a conclusion that the SFBD is
capable of achieving good fluidization quality for
low bed heights and suitable for biomass drying,
especially that operates with batch processing. |
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