Influence of electrostatics on instrumentation in fluidized bed measurements

Abstract

In fluidized bed, electrostatics is a common phenomenon due to the frequent collisions among solid particles, as well as between solid particles and the wall. It can cause serious problems for fluidized beds, altering hydrodynamics, causing agglomeration, interfering with instrumentation, generating nuisance discharges and even creating the danger of explosions. Despite these negative effects of electrostatics, current understanding on this subject is far from completion. The present study will focus on electrostatics in fluidized bed. Through our experimental study, it is found that the strong electrostatics can greatly affect the instrumentation and can easily lead to the terminations of data acquisitions. With increasing fluidizing air velocity, the generated electrostatics is increased rapidly. In order to reduce the influence of electrostatics, the non-conductive tape is adhered to the inner walls of fluidized bed, and the generated electrostatics is greatly decreased, as such the instrumentation can also work continuously. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.