BACKGROUND Drying of terebinth fruit was conducted to provide microbiological stability, reduce product deterioration due to chemical reactions, facilitate storage and lower transportation costs. Because terebinth fruit is susceptible to heat, the selection of a suitable drying technology is a challenging task. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are used as a nonlinear mapping structures for mod...

Palm kernel shell is an important bioenergy resource in Thailand. However, due to elevated alkali content in biomass ash, this oil palm residue shows high tendency to bed agglomeration in a fluidized-bed combustion system using conventional bed material (silica sand). In this study, palm kernel shell was burned in the conical fluidized-bed combustor (FBC) using alumina and dolomite as alternati...

Changes in the physical properties (size, particle density, bulk density, shrinkage and porosity) and fluidization behaviour of cut green beans with change in moisture content during drying were investigated using a heat pump and fluidized bed dryers. Three length:diameter ratios 1:1, 2:1, 3:1 of cut green beans were considered. All drying experiments were conducted at 50 + 2 0 C and 13 + 2 % R...

A bench-scale updraft gasifier was used as a fluidized- and fixed-bed gasification unit in three modes (fluidized-bed at equivalence ratios (ER) =0.2 and 0.25, and a mode in fixed-bed). The experiments were done in five different temperatures (650, 700, 750, 800 and 850oC). To obtain the required data to develop a thermodynamic equilibrium model, the proximate and ultimate analysis w...

We demonstrate that a fluidized bed of hard spheres during defluidization displays properties associated with formation of a glass. The final state is rate dependent, and as this state is approached, the bed exhibits heterogeneity with increasing time and length scales. The formation of a glass results in the arrest of macroscopic particle motion and thus the loss of fluidization. Microscopic m...

We demonstrate that a fluidized bed of hard spheres undergoes a glass transition during defluidization. As in other glass-forming systems, the dynamics of the bed becomes heterogeneous as the transition is approached; spatial and temporal correlation scales increase rapidly. Microscopic motion persists in the glass state, but the bed can be jammed (all motion arrested) by application of a small...