International Journal of Arts and Sciences 3(1): 43 - 49 (2009) CD-ROM. ISSN: 1944-6934 InternationalJournal.

org

Fluidized Bed Drying System for Continuous Processing of Lignocellulosic Polymer Composite Materials
Ali Serdar Vanli, Yildiz Technical University, Turkey Anil Akdogan, Yildiz Technical University, Turkey Ahmet Koyun, Yildiz Technical University, Turkey

Abstract: Wood polymer composite material additives are the herbal bulks like cellulose, hemi cellulose and lignin. Low cellular moisture is one of the most essential requirements of the production of high performance features composite materials. In this work, the construction of a Fluidized Bed Drying System (FBDS) which works as desiccators to dry appropriate grain sized lignosellulosic materials is presented and the machines performance test results are represented. High performance dryer makes ready to use the wood-based materials continuously for the continuous production of composite materials by saving time and labor. Keywords: Lignocellulosic polymer composites, drying system, continuous processing.

1. Introduction
Wood-plastic composites are used primarily in building products such as decking, fencing, siding, windows and doors and decorative trim. Other applications made infrastructure such as boardwalks, marinas and guardrails; transportation such as interior automotive panels, truck floors, and head liners; and industrial and consumer applications such as pallets, playground equipment and benches. Outdoor tables, chairs and benches are already being made by wood polymer composites (Plastics additives & Compounding, 2002). Herbal bulks like cellulose, hemi cellulose and lignin are called lignocellulosic materials. Carbohydrate polymers cellulose and hemi cellulose are bonded to lignin with hydrogen and covalent bonds. Lignocellulosic materials as additives to wood based composite polymers are wasted papers, herbal waste, wood shaving, plant flakes etc. Polymer filler material might also obtained from different national resources like nut shells, kenaf, hemp, rice hulls instead of residual wood sawdust. PP and PE are the primary resin used in composite products. Low cellular moisture is one of the most essential requirements of the production of high performance features composite materials. Today, wood based additives are dried in some furnaces (Gosselin & Rodrigue, I, II, 2006). This method needs too much time and requires labor by mixing turning inside out of the grains. In the production method of composite material the polymer and the lignocellulosic material are being fed to extrusion machine from different funnels. To supply the continuity of the process there shouldnt be an interruption in feeding the additive materials. The represented high performance dryer system makes ready to use of the wood-based materials continuously for the continuous production of composite materials by saving time and labor force.

2. Grain Size Analysis and Fluidized Bed Drying System

If we look into international work papers it has been realized that; low resin ratio and viscosity, easy providing, low grain hardness and strength and also low cellular moisture features are desired for lignocellulosic materials. Because of these requirements, many of the herbal materials like as beech and pinewood and also spruce, walnut, ailanthus, naturally desiccated grass pedicles and various kind of plants, have been experienced as composite material additives in the international worksheets (Gosselin & Rodrigue, I, II, 2006), (Kck & Demirbas, 1999), (Akhtar, Scott, Swaney & Shipley, 2000) In this work, beech and pinewood sawdust have been selected as the additive materials for achieving the performance test results of the designed system. At the end of the investigations and the experimental analysis it has been detected that, wood grain size should be less than 400 m in diameter for many sort of positive effects like as homogeneous mixture production, providing minimum moisture volume in the wood grains and minimizing the viscosity of polymer composite slurry. Due to these constructive factors, the lignocellulosic materials, which provided from market area and has random grain format, should be decomposed into the suitable grain sizes efficiently and rapidly. The designed Shaking Garbling Machine is including three screens as 400 m, 800 m and 1200 m mesh sizes. Garbling process can be made consistently and automatically by the force of the electric motor of this machine (Fig. 1). According to the screening results which have been obtained by Shaking Garbling Machine, pinewood dust, provided from lumber market area, includes 11 wt.% wood grain upper from 400 m mesh diameter, 26 wt.% grain size between 400-800 m, 39 wt.% between 800-1200 m and finally 24 wt.% wood sawdust under of 1200 m mesh diameter.

Figure 1. Shaking Garbling Machine.

Considering the garbling results for beech wood dust, also called MDF sawdust, which provided from lumber market area, includes 13 wt.% wood grain upper from 400 m mesh diameter, 24 wt.% between 400-800 m, 41 wt.% grain between 800-1200 m and 22 wt.% grain sawdust under of 1200 m mesh diameter. The beech and pinewood sawdust can be used with a circulation garbling system which has been designed as the result of the screening tests. Owing to the wood materials are being used widely by furniture and structure application industry, as an important specialty it is easy to consistently obtain beech and pinewood dusts. The designed FBDS has three essential stations for the wood material which will be desiccated. The first station, is called Back Funnel, is a small part on the machine and roles as a silo for the raw material. It is shown in Fig. 2, with number 6. There is a decaying pitch screwed conveyor system under the back funnel. This screwed conveyor system transfers the wood material to the next station. The screwed conveyors rotation speed can be changed according to desired raw material volume. The secondary station is the fluidized bed region of the pressure decrease accounts. Fluid-air temperature could be increased by a heat controlled resistance placed inside or outside of the fluidized bed so that required dry air environment can be achieved. However, inside temperature of the fluidized bed must be much lower than the decomposition temperature of wood material. Otherwise, undesired burnings and ash formations may occur. This station is shown in Fig. 2, with number 8. The fan, indicated by number 11, allows movement up of the solid particles in the fluidized bed. Produced excess air evacuates by the cloth transmission channel. Material had been come to the pre-funnel indicated by number 4. After that, the wood material evacuates into a glass flow channel by a stable pitch helical shaft in which an infrared heater is fixed into. Infrared heater temperature could be set digitally between 15-200C. Nitrogen gas could be injected into the glass flow channel for the purpose of deporting excess moisture and foreign particles. The flow channel connects with an evacuation flange produced from polyamide, at the end of the glass tube. Dried solid particles shipped from the evacuation funnel.

Figure 2. Schematic illustration of Fluidized Bed Drying System.

3. Performance Test Results

The first part of performance tests is performed in an 18A, 50 Hz, 8,6L volume, 5,8kW electrical furnace. At a stable temperature, beech and pinewood sawdust are dried in the furnace and weight losses are calculated at different time periods. The drying furnaces temperature has set at 85C and time periods are 0,5 h and 1 h determined. It is known that drying time could be shorter in circulation furnaces than being in static furnaces. Certainly, an effective drying is inevasible as the moisture is harmful to the product surface quality. At 85C the 500 g and 800-1200 m mesh beech sawdust has dried for 0,5 h in the electrical furnace at 5 repeated tests the calculated average moisture loss is 5,4% determined. Different 5 repeated tests for 1 h drying the moisture loss result is 7,3% calculated (Tab. 1). The same processes are performed for 500 g 800-1200 m mesh pinewood sawdust. For 5 times 0,5 h drying tests are performed and the average moisture loss result is 2,8% determined. Different 5 repeated tests for 1 h drying the average moisture loss result is 5,6% calculated (Tab. 1). The second part of this section is about the performance tests results of the FBDS. Firstly, the calibration tests of the machine are performed. According to the results, charged wood sawdust to the machine back funnel is evacuated from evacuation flange with 1% losses. The possible reasons of these losses are back blow of charged sawdust to the back funnel and sawdust missing in delivery pipe. While infrared heat set at 85C the 500 g and 800 -1200 m mesh beech sawdust has charged to the back funnel of the machine. After the end of the 5 min. process the evacuated sawdust is weighted and the lost moisture content is evaluated. End of the 5 repeated tests 9,8% moisture loss is calculated for beech sawdust. Same processes are performed for pinewood sawdust at the same conditions. Finally, at the end of 5 repeated tests 5,3% moisture loss is calculated for pinewood sawdust at the constructed FBDS. Charged wood sawdust to the machine back funnel is evacuated from evacuation flange in 5 min. at any process (Tab. 1).
Table 1. Experimental results of moisture losses (wt.%) of beech and pinewood sawdust. Experiment FBDS Pine Wood (5 min.) Beech Wood (5 min.) Pine Wood (1h) Beech Wood (1h) Pine Wood (0,5 h) Beech Wood (0,5 h) 1 4,9 10,2 5,5 7,5 2,7 5,3 2 6,2 9,1 5,7 7,2 2,8 5,1 3 5,3 9,9 6,1 7,8 3,0 5,4 4 4,8 10,3 5,6 6,9 2,9 5,5 5 5,1 9,3 4,9 7,3 2,6 5,8 Average 5,3 9,8 5,6 7,3 2,8 5,4 Std. Dev. 0,5595 0,5367 0,4336 0,3362 0,1291 0,2588

Electrical Furnace

The wood sawdust taken from nature which has been used for the production of WPC material contains too much moisture. In order to be used in manufacturing process its moisture content must be reduced in probable levels. Every manufacturer might determine that level according to individual manufacturing parameters and being used lignocellulosic material properties.
102,500 102,250 102,000 101,750 101,500 101,250 101,000 100,750 100,500 100,250 100,000
10 0 20 0 30 0 40 0 50 0 60 0 70 0 80 0 90 0 10 00 11 00 12 00 13 00 14 00 15 00 16 00 17 00 18 00 19 00 20 00 21 00 22 00 23 00 0

weight (g)

tim e (m in.)

Figure 3. Beech wood sawdust weight rise according to time.

102,500 102,250 102,000 101,750 101,500 101,250 101,000 100,750 100,500 100,250 100,000
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 22 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

weight (g)

tim e (m in.)

Figure 4. Pine wood sawdust weight rise according to time.

23

00

In this work, in FBDS dried pine and beech wood sawdust materials are left 36 h at standard room conditions (30% RH, 23C) and re -moistening amount is determined. At the end of 36 h time period beech wood sawdust has re-moisturized at 2,27% as weight rise. Pine wood sawdust weight rise has determined as 1,25% (Fig.3 and Fig.4). Over moisture in lignocellulosic materials affects the composite materials production process in a negative way. Considering this truth, the moisture keeping and re-moistening properties of additive materials in left room conditions should be determined so that available time period of manufacturing for dried material must be stated.

4. Conclusion
In this work, the construction of a FBDS which works as desiccators to dry appropriate grain sized lignosellulosic materials is presented and the machines performance test results are represented. Performance tests results of the designed dryer show that it has higher and homogeny humidifying capability than traditional furnaces. The vital advantage of this design is supplying the continuity of the composite production process. The material can be charged to the back funnel and be evacuated from evacuation flange continuously than be charged to production process. The represented high performance dryer system makes ready to use of the wood-based materials continuously for the continuous production of composite materials by saving time and labor. For a homogeny drying traditional methods need too much time and require labor force. On the contrary FBDS can be performed in minutes-time and doesnt need additional labor except feeding the material to the back funnel. Acknowledgement: This work is supported by Industrial Ministry of Turkish Republic numbered 00215.STZ.2007-2SANTEZ project.

References
Additive development aid growth in wood plastic composites, Plastics additives & Compounding, 2002. Gosselin, R., Rodrigue, D. (2006). Injection Molding of Postconsumer WoodPlastic Composites I: Morphology. Journal Of Thermoplastic Composite Materials, Vol. 19, 639-657. Gosselin, R., Rodrigue, D. (2006). Injection Molding of Postconsumer WoodPlastic Composites II: Morphology. Journal Of Thermoplastic Composite Materials, Vol. 19, 659669.

Kck, M., Demirbas, A. (1999). Kinetic study on hydrolysis of biomass (Ailanthus altissima chips) by using Alkaline-glycerol solution. Energy Conservation&Management, vol. 40, 1397-1403. Akhtar, M., Scott, G., Swaney, R., Shipley, D. (2000). Biomechanical pulping: a mill-scale evaluation. Resource Conservation and Recycling, vol. 28, 241-252.