Review: Granulation and Fluidized Beds

摘要

The history of granulation techniques is very long; however, the systematic study of the granulation phenomenon began only after 1950. The first, distinguished paper treating the fundamental binding mechanism of granules was published by Rumpf in 1958. Although there are several binding forces, the discussion in this paper is confined to granulation involving the capillary energy of a liquid-particle system. This technique has been applied widely and successfully to various fields of powder technology because of its advantages of simplicity and economy (ref. 2). Granules with diameters larger than 5 mm can be prepared efficiently by rotating-type granulators, such as a pan or a trommel (ref. 3, 4, 5). On the other hand, the purpose of fluidized-bed granulators (hereafter abbreviated as FBG) is to produce small granules with diameters from 0.3 to 3 mm (ref. 6). Because it contains a small amount of liquid, a fluidized-bed granulator has a fluidization state differing significantly from that of an ordinary fluidized bed. The dispersion of liquid and powder in the bed plays an important role in the granulation mechanism. This mechanism is compared to that of pan granulators, and the differences in characteristics are discussed. (ERA citation 07:022785)