Study on Fluidization Characteristics of Chinese Herbal Medicine Waste in a Fluidized Bed Reactor

Large amounts of Chinese herbal medicine wastes (CHMW) are produced in the process of processing and manufacturing traditional Chinese crude medicines. For CHMW, gasification in fluidized bed is a promising option. But, it is the difficult to fluidize CHMW particles alone in fluidized bed gasifier, especially for various size and shape of CHMW particles. It is very common to fluidize these kinds of biomass particles with sand, gives better defined fluidization behavior and a more reliable scale-up. However, not much is known about fluidization behavior of CHMW particles in fluidized bed. Therefore, a fluidized bed and its air distribution were designed and set up, the experimental study on fluidization characteristic of CHMW was done in the fluidize bed. Minimum fluidization velocity and the effect of bed height of CHMW/quartz sand mixtures on fluidization properties in air have been experimentally determined. The results showed that good fluidized could achieve with the additional of quartz sand. The results will be in favorite design and operation of CHMW gasification in fluidized bed.