Fluidization of binary mixtures of sisal residue and sand: A new model for deriving the final fluidization velocity

The influence of different factors on the fluidization of a binary mixture of sisal residue and sand was investigated. The particle sizes of the sand and sisal residue were varied from 0.2 to 0.8 mm and the biomass mass fractions from 2% to 9%. Some segregation was noted, and a significant relationship was found among the final fluidization velocity (U-ff), the biomass and sand sizes, and the biomass mass fraction. A novel model was developed for predicting U-ff, leading to an average discrepancy of 12.69% between the measured and predicted Uff compared with the best match of 15.32% when using a model from a previous paper. The new model was applied to data from studies using other biomass and a broad range of particle characteristics. The average divergences from measured values when using the new model were 7.9% for corn cob and walnut shell, and 20.5% for sweet sorghum bagasse, tobacco residue, and soy hulls. These were superior to the values derived using other models. Our results confirm the accuracy of the model developed in this work and show that it represents a viable alternative way to calculate U-ff for a binary mixture of sand and biomass. (C) 2018 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.