Hydrodynamics of three-phase fluidization of a homogeneous ternary mixture of regular particles—Experimental and statistical analysis

In the present study, a series of experiments were carried out for homogeneous well-mixed ternary mixtures of glass beads of varying compositions in a three-phase fluidized bed. The hydrodynamic characteristics determined included the bed pressure drop, bed fluctuation and bed expansion ratios. The individual and combined effects of operating parameters such as superficial gas velocity, superficial liquid velocity, initial static bed height, average particle size and column diameter on the responses have been analyzed using response surface methodology (RSM). A 25 full factorial central composite experimental design has been employed. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a high value coefficient of determination and a satisfactory prediction of second-order regression model. The synergetic and antagonistic effect of the system parameters on the above three responses are analyzed from the developed regression models. The coefficient of correlations for bed pressure drop, bed expansion and fluctuation ratios are found to be 0.9642, 0.9483 and 0.9423 respectively. Thus, the experimental values of the above three hydrodynamic parameters have been found to agree well with those calculated from the developed correlations.