Fluid Bed - Product Line - Magnaflo - Process Overview


		Fluid Beds

	*Product Line - MAGNAFLO®* - Process Overview**

	Process Overview
	Unique Features
	Options


	Fluid bed drying is a fast technique for removing moisture or other volatile solvents from a wide variety of materials. Fluid bed granulating is a modification of the drying process in which a suitable granulating fluid is sprayed onto the top of the fluidized bed of powder to form granules or agglomerates. Fluid bed granulation is used to change product density, improve flowability and increase dispensability. Granulation is also used to blend and join products of different sizes and densities. In both drying and granulating, the airflow up through the bed of material must be uniform to ensure that the air makes intimate contact with all of the product and keeps the top of the bed moving. FLUID AIR fluid bed systems utilize a Conidur bed plate at the bottom of the bowl. The Conidur bed plate carries a fair amount of pressure drop across it to distribute the air evenly across the entire surface of the plate. This ensures uniform fluidization of the material. A hydraulically driven agitator in the bowl prevents channeling of the air from occurring. The agitator also permits a slightly lower air flow to be used to achieve the same movement of the material at the top of the bed. The lower airflow helps to keep fine particles below the spray nozzles when granulating. A conical shaped expansion chamber decreases the velocity of air in half from the bottom of the expansion chamber to the top. This helps to keep fine particles out of the upper filter region and below the spray nozzle when granulating.

FLUID AIR fluid bed systems are designed to maximize the amount of product in the critical granulating zone by utilizing:

A conical shaped expansion chamber which cuts the velocity of air in half from the bottom of the chamber to the top. During drying the velocity drop keeps the fine particles out of the upper filter region and helps keep them below the spray nozzles when granulating.
An agitator in the bowl to mechanically assist the bed movement. This reduces the airflow and velocity required to fluidize a product.
A heavy-duty Turboflo or Conidur plate that carries a fair amount of pressure drop, allowing process air to be distributed evenly across the bottom of the bowl.

FLUID AIR fluid bed systems can be equipped with three different filter configurations to meet the needs of your application:

One-Piece Bag- A bag that extends from the bottom of the chamber to the top, preventing product from coming into contact with the chamber walls. Thus, if the material being dried or granulated has a propensity to stick, it will stick to the bag instead of the chamber wall. Product build-up is removed by periodic shaking of the bag resulting in more uniform production and higher yields. Further, as the chamber walls are not exposed to product, you will not have to remove product build up from the walls at the end of the batch and/or when changing from one product to the next.
Cartridge Filters- Cartridge filters are installed in the upper portion of the expansion chamber. The cartridges are automatically pulsed clean permitting continuous fluidization of the material.
Bag/Cartridge Combination

FLUID AIR granulators use air atomized spray nozzles in single or multi-nozzle configurations. Droplet size is varied by the atomization pressure and the nozzle tip size. For multi-nozzle applications, we developed a high efficiency spray system that spreads out the nozzles and points them straight down at the bed. This pattern produces a more uniform coverage of the bed. A higher percentage of granulating solution contacts the bed as compared to cluster mounted nozzles used in more traditional fluid beds. The end result is a more uniform product, quicker granulation time, and more efficient use of granulating solution. To further optimize the granulating spray system the spray nozzle height can be raised or lowered automatically during the process. This permits the distance between the nozzle tip and fluidized bed to be adjusted during the process to compensate for changes in the bed height.

If you will be utilizing multiple fluid bed systems of different sizes (i.e., for development and production), it is worthy of noting that FLUID AIR fluid bed systems maintain critical scale up factors such as average bowl geometries, air velocities and air changes (quantity of air/cubic foot of product) from one unit to the next. Thus, product created in smaller size systems can be easily scaled to production using proportionally the same air conditions. Further, operating bed depth, which affects the end density of the product when granulating, is also maintained from one unit to the next.