Dry separation of fine particulate sand mixture based on density-segregation in a vibro-fluidized bed

Abstract

Separation of fine particulate solid materials is one of most important unit operations in industry. Utilization of gas-solid fluidized beds has been considered where particulates are released from constraints due to contacts with surrounding particulates and segregation occurs according to density, size or combination of density and size. Addition of mechanical vibration to the gas-solid fluidized bed may improve dry solid separation. In this study, we investigated the dry separation characteristics of solid particulates using a vibro-fluidized bed especially focusing on the separation of fine particulate ores (≈100 μm) with small density differences. At first, we focused on the influence o..