Fluidisation behaviour of silica nanoparticles under horizontal vibration

In present study, fluidization behaviour of silica nanoparticles with primary size between 7 and 16nm under horizontal vibration was investigated. Fluidization characteristics were assessed by observing pressure drop, bed expansion and bed collapse behaviour at the vibration frequencies between 0 and 34 Hz. Horizontal vibration is demonstrated to be as effective as the vertical configuration reported previously in terms of fluidization improvement. In all cases, smooth agglomerate particulate fluidization was observed at vibrational frequencies greater than 16.7 Hz as long as the vibrational amplitude is set to be more than 1. This is much lower than previous reported value, and suggests that fluidization assisted with horizontal vibration is a promising technique for the large scale processing of nanomaterials (e.g. reacting, dispersing, or coating).