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Fluidization engineering: Second edition
Powder Technology, 74 (1993) 197
197
Book Review Fluidiza tion Engineering: Second Edition and by D. Kunii Butterworth-Heinemann, 90233-0; 270.
Levenspiel, published by 0. Oxford, 1992,491 pp.; ISBN: 0-409-
The first edition of ‘Fluidization Engineering’ appeared in 1969 and was the first text to link in a comprehensive way the basic research aspects of the subject with their applications to the design of industrial fluid bed units. In the twenty-odd years since then numerous books and innumerable papers have been published on fluidization so that anyone today contemplating writing a survey of the whole field is faced with a task of mammoth proportions. Kunii and Levenspiel have avoided this particular problem by judiciously updating the bulk of their fhst edition and adding material on subjects such as ‘fast fluidization’ that have only come into prominence in more recent years. However, as the authors point out in the preface to this second edition, the result of these changes is largely a new book with eighteen chapters spread over 491 pages compared with the earlier version’s fifteen chapters over 534. As before the book begins with an introductory chapter followed by one on industrial applications. The latter should be particularly welcome to those interested in chemical and physical processes and it gives a good qualitative overview of the main systems used for synthesis reactions, cracking, combustion, gasification, calcination, etc. Chapter 3 is concerned with the mapping of fluidization regimes and it introduces two of the post-first edition topics that have had such an influence on fluidization in recent years, the Geldart classification of powders and fast or circulating fluidized beds. The latter has become of such importance that the authors have been fit to devote a whole chapter to it where they deal with many of the design aspects of highvelocity fluidization regimes.
The fourth chapter deals with processes such as jet and bubble formation that occur at or near the distributor while the next two chapters consider various aspects of bubble flow from both theoretical (the Davidson model) and practical standpoints. The chapter on entrainment and elutriation is followed logically by the one on circulating systems mentioned above and this is followed by a detailed consideration of the mixing and segregation of solids in both single- and multistaged units. The material on the interphase exchange of gases and on particle-tegas mass and heat transfer is treated in terms of the well-established ‘bubbling bed model’ which is also applied to catalytic reactors in Chapter 12. It is good to see this model being applied to more complex reactions than the simple first order type normally considered. Not only are seriesconsecutive kinetics examined but the model is extended from fine particles to coarse and from bubbling to circulating beds with freeboard reactions being thrown in for good measure. In this chapter as in most of the others worked examples are given to illustrate and amplify the main arguments of the text, an especially useful feature that along with the end-of-chapter problems will commend it to teachers and students of both fluidization and reaction engineering. The book contains good chapters on bed-twsurface heat transfer and on the residence time distribution and size distribution of solids in circulating systems; it is completed by three chapters on design aspects of systems for physical operations, catalytic and noncatalytic reactions. Although it is aimed at the designer and user of fluidized beds I feel sure the book will be of interest to a wider readership not least to other authors who are looking for a model on which to base an engineering text: in terms of content, balance, style and presentation it would be hard to find a better. J. G. Yates
Elsevier Sequoia
197
Book Review Fluidiza tion Engineering: Second Edition and by D. Kunii Butterworth-Heinemann, 90233-0; 270.
Levenspiel, published by 0. Oxford, 1992,491 pp.; ISBN: 0-409-
The first edition of ‘Fluidization Engineering’ appeared in 1969 and was the first text to link in a comprehensive way the basic research aspects of the subject with their applications to the design of industrial fluid bed units. In the twenty-odd years since then numerous books and innumerable papers have been published on fluidization so that anyone today contemplating writing a survey of the whole field is faced with a task of mammoth proportions. Kunii and Levenspiel have avoided this particular problem by judiciously updating the bulk of their fhst edition and adding material on subjects such as ‘fast fluidization’ that have only come into prominence in more recent years. However, as the authors point out in the preface to this second edition, the result of these changes is largely a new book with eighteen chapters spread over 491 pages compared with the earlier version’s fifteen chapters over 534. As before the book begins with an introductory chapter followed by one on industrial applications. The latter should be particularly welcome to those interested in chemical and physical processes and it gives a good qualitative overview of the main systems used for synthesis reactions, cracking, combustion, gasification, calcination, etc. Chapter 3 is concerned with the mapping of fluidization regimes and it introduces two of the post-first edition topics that have had such an influence on fluidization in recent years, the Geldart classification of powders and fast or circulating fluidized beds. The latter has become of such importance that the authors have been fit to devote a whole chapter to it where they deal with many of the design aspects of highvelocity fluidization regimes.
The fourth chapter deals with processes such as jet and bubble formation that occur at or near the distributor while the next two chapters consider various aspects of bubble flow from both theoretical (the Davidson model) and practical standpoints. The chapter on entrainment and elutriation is followed logically by the one on circulating systems mentioned above and this is followed by a detailed consideration of the mixing and segregation of solids in both single- and multistaged units. The material on the interphase exchange of gases and on particle-tegas mass and heat transfer is treated in terms of the well-established ‘bubbling bed model’ which is also applied to catalytic reactors in Chapter 12. It is good to see this model being applied to more complex reactions than the simple first order type normally considered. Not only are seriesconsecutive kinetics examined but the model is extended from fine particles to coarse and from bubbling to circulating beds with freeboard reactions being thrown in for good measure. In this chapter as in most of the others worked examples are given to illustrate and amplify the main arguments of the text, an especially useful feature that along with the end-of-chapter problems will commend it to teachers and students of both fluidization and reaction engineering. The book contains good chapters on bed-twsurface heat transfer and on the residence time distribution and size distribution of solids in circulating systems; it is completed by three chapters on design aspects of systems for physical operations, catalytic and noncatalytic reactions. Although it is aimed at the designer and user of fluidized beds I feel sure the book will be of interest to a wider readership not least to other authors who are looking for a model on which to base an engineering text: in terms of content, balance, style and presentation it would be hard to find a better. J. G. Yates
Elsevier Sequoia