STUDIES ON FLUIDIZATION BEHAVIOUR OF SAND AND BIOMASS MIXTURES

The present work is focused on the study of fluidization behaviour of biomass and sand mixtures in a laboratory scale test set up. The biomass materials used during the experimentation were rice husk, bagasse and sawdust. Two different particle sizes of silica sands were used in forming the mixture. The percentages of biomass in the mixtures were 2%, 5%, 10 % and 15 % by weight. The minimum fluidization velocities of the binary samples were experimentally found out in a transparent fluidized bed column. The experimental values of the minimum fluidization velocities were compared with the correlations available in literature. The pressure drops across the fluidized beds were also measured at different operating conditions and such data have been analyzed to explain the hydrodynamic behaviour