Experimental Study on the Agglomeration Behavior of Elongated Biomass Particles in a Lifting Tube

Pneumatic conveying devices are commonly used in the fields of chemical industry, raw material transportation, and material processing. Elongated biomass particles are not evenly distributed in the lifting tube because biomass clumps during conveying. Pneumatic conveying test setup and measurement system were built in this paper in order to study the agglomeration behavior of elongated biomass particles in the lifting tube experimentally. Particle tracking velocimetry (PTV) was used to determine the area distribution and velocity distribution of particles at different apparent air velocities and mass flow rates. The results show that while keeping the mass flow rate constant at 46.50 g/s, the apparent gas velocity increased from 5.91 to 7.91 m/s and the maximum size of agglomerates decreased from 0.689 to 0.235. The apparent gas velocity was kept at 6.40 m/s, and the particle mass flow rate was adjusted from 56.50 to 16.20 g/s. The maximum size of the agglomerates was reduced to 0.115. Therefore, appropriately increasing the apparent gas velocity or decreasing the particle mass flow rate can improve the uniformity of the particle distribution in the lifting tube. The results would provide a reference for parameter adjustment of pneumatic conveying devices in industrial production.