Even though numerous publications and its popularity in industrial applications, the knowledge about vibratory dynamics and properties are very limited.
It offers some advantages of fluidized bed, however the feed will move along the vibrating conveyor until they have dried adequately to break up and this will cause lower chance of agglomerates build-up in the feed; hence it is useful for processing group C particles which have small size of fine particles, into smaller agglomerates.
[2][3] Vibratory fluidized beds are mainly used in several industries such as pharmaceutical, agricultural, catalyst, plastics, minerals, food processes.
[4][6] As mention above vibratory fluidized bed are mainly used in numerous industries where certain particle size are needed to be consistent without any defect to produce better product for their consumer.
From several experiments conducted, it was shown that vibration helps in the fluidization of particles as the axial and radial voidage distribution become more homogeneous.
Based on the model using a plug flow of solids, the selectivity and best drying conditions to achieve the ideal final moisture composition were determined.
[5] Knowing that one of the advantages of the vibrating fluidized bed is its small pressure drop, several studies has been made to show that for a given operating condition range, the pressure drop of the vibrating bed when compared to a conventional one is much smaller.
[14] The presence of this pressure drop across the vibrating fluidized bed has a large impact on the heat and mass transfer in the process.
Mujumdar (1988)[17] devised two methods using vibration technic of fluidization for fluidizing hot-sensitive and paste-like materials.
Therefore, it was concluded that for optimum operating conditions to be achieved, the particles which are fed into the vibratory fluidized bed should be decreased.
Usually the particle size of the feed material is not a controlled parameter unless methods such as grinding are used but doing so would involve extra operating cost which should be avoided.
Lastly, not forgetting the characteristics which may cause an effect when scaling-up such as voidage behaviour on particle size as mentioned earlier.
[11] For vibratory fluidized bed, the common waste products include ash, dust and small solid particles produced by materials contacting / heating.
This process could be achieved by simple separation techniques such as gas cyclones, bag house and scrubbers.
By feeding gas tangentially into the cyclone body, high speed rotating flow established a centrifugal force and creates vortexes of particles.
Generally, larger than 100 μm or denser particles, which have more inertia, are pushed towards the wall and sink to the bottom of the cyclone, exit via the underflow.
Overflow contains gas and small amount of ash and dust, it usually be deposited into the air or feed into a Bag house for further treatment.
The general principle is to use heat or pressure to pulse air through top of the fabric filter material to detach the collected particles from the bags.
Alternatively, the fines can be reintroduced into the original product stream with a "blow-through" type rotary valve.
Compared to baghouse, a scrubber injects a dry reagent or slurry into dirty feed gas, via the contact of target materials to remove pollution.