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Concept
Fluidized bed
Summary
A fluidized bed is a physical phenomenon that occurs when a solid particulate substance (usually present in a holding vessel) is under the right conditions so that it behaves like a fluid. The usual way to achieve a fluidized bed is to pump pressurized fluid into the particles. The resulting medium then has many properties and characteristics of normal fluids, such as the ability to free-flow under gravity, or to be pumped using fluid technologies.
The resulting phenomenon is called fluidization. Fluidized beds are used for several purposes, such as fluidized bed reactors (types of chemical reactors), solids separation, fluid catalytic cracking, fluidized bed combustion, heat or mass transfer or interface modification, such as applying a coating onto solid items. This technique is also becoming more common in aquaculture for the production of shellfish in integrated multi-trophic aquaculture systems.
A fluidized bed consists of fluid-solid mixture that exhibits fluid-like properties. As such, the upper surface of the bed is relatively horizontal, which is analogous to hydrostatic behavior. The bed can be considered to be a heterogeneous mixture of fluid and solid that can be represented by a single bulk density.
Furthermore, an object with a higher density than the bed will sink, whereas an object with a lower density than the bed will float, thus the bed can be considered to exhibit the fluid behavior expected of Archimedes' principle. As the "density", (actually the solid volume fraction of the suspension), of the bed can be altered by changing the fluid fraction, objects with different densities comparative to the bed can, by altering either the fluid or solid fraction, be caused to sink or float.
In fluidised beds, the contact of the solid particles with the fluidisation medium (a gas or a liquid) is greatly enhanced when compared to packed beds. This behavior in fluidised combustion beds enables good thermal transport inside the system and good heat transfer between the bed and its container.
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