Fluidization, Solids Handling, and Processing

This volume, Fluidization, Solids Handling, and Processing, is the first of a series of volumes on “Particle Technology” to be published by Noyes Publications with L. S. Fan of Ohio State University as the consulting editor. Particles are important products of chemical process industries spanning the basic and specialty chemicals, agricultural products, pharmaceuticals, paints, dyestuffs and pigments, cement, ceramics, and electronic materials. Solids handling and processing technologies are thus essential to the operation and competitiveness of these industries. Fluidization technology is employed not only in chemical production, it also is applied in coal gasification and combustion for power generation, mineral processing, food processing, soil washing and other related waste treatment, environmental remediation, and resource recovery processes. The FCC (Fluid Catalytic Cracking) technology commonly employed in the modern petroleum refineries is also based on the fluidization principles. There are already many books published on the subjects of fluidization, solids handling, and processing. On first thought, I was skeptical about the wisdom and necessity of one more book on these subjects. On closer examination, however, I found that some industrially important subjects were either not covered in those books or were skimpily rendered. It would be a good service to the profession and the engineering community to assemble all these topics in one volume. In this book, I have invited recognized experts in their respective areas to provide a detailed treatment of those industrially important subjects. The subject areas covered in this book were selected based on two criteria: (i) the subjects are of industrial importance, and (ii) the subjects have not been covered extensively in books published to date.