Lab-scale fluidized bed system

• Subject Area: Process Engineering, Technical Chemistry
• Term: Funded in 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 455843963

Particle formulation in fluidized beds includes the micro processes agglomeration, granulation and coating and is applied for the production of a lot of different products from chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry. The main aim is the production of particulate products out of the liquid phase by spraying liquid droplets (from solutions, suspensions or melts) into the fluidized bed. By directed adjustment of the process parameters granular, free-flowing, dust-free, stable and high-value particles with defined product and application properties can be produced.The Institute of Solids Process Engineering and Particle Technology has a long-term experience in the application and multi-scale simulation of fluidized beds for particle formulation by agglomeration, granulation and coating as well as for thermal treatment of particulate materials and for drying. Nevertheless, the experimental research area is limited as the existing lab-scale fluidized bed does not include a dust-explosion protection system, an inlet air dehumidification or a washing-in-place possibility. The requested lab-scale fluidized bed will overcome these limitations and will allow the investigation of additional material systems.The plant will be used in research projects focused on coating of highly-porous aerogel particles, generation of particles with high energy dissipation density as well as production of composite materials and additional functional particles. In addition, the general applicability of the fluidized bed spray granulation process for further material systems will be investigated. These systems include dusty powders, which can often be found in pharmaceutical and food industry. The size enlargement or coating or these powders presents an interesting research area in times of increased ecological awareness as the stability of the powders themselves can be increased by particle formulation while the amount of packaging material can be reduced. A major research focus of the institute is the investigation of the connection between process and apparatus specific parameters and the resulting product and application properties. The interaction of these pillars will be investigated for different material systems in order to improve the predictability of fluidized bed processes in industry and academia. In this context, a strong link to the multiscale simulation approaches will be created in order to calibrate the simulations and to create process kinetics for flowsheet simulations, respectively. Another research focus will be the development of scaling laws. By installation of a plant with two process chambers with same geometry but different size, the influence of the plant size can be quantified and novel scaling approaches will be developed.

• DFG Programme: Major Research Instrumentation
• Major Instrumentation: Laborwirbelschichtanlage
• Instrumentation Group: 1980 Pressen für Labor- und Verfahrenstechnik
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Hamburg
• Leader: Professor Dr.-Ing. Stefan Heinrich