Poster Presentation for Innovation Summit, 3 -4 Nov, 2015, Haripur, Pakistan

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Dry Particle Segregation; A Sustainable Approach

Muddasar Habib*, Micaiah C. Das, Al-Faran Javaid, Mian Yahya Gul, Uzair Tariq
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology Peshawar, Pakistan
*mudassar77@hotmail.com

Objective

Procedure

Granular particles processing is important to many industries

e.g., ceramic, mineral, fertilizer, process, cosmetic, food, and
metallurgical.

Material selection and preparation e.g., shredding, cutting.

Selection of separator cell and its parameters e.g., gap size,
open/close operation, surrounding fluid.

80% of pharma. products in granular or pill form; an estimate

Half of the chemical products and one third of their raw
materials are processed in granular form.

Setting vibration parameters e.g., acceleration, frequency.

Constant Monitoring of operating parameters and collection
of separated material for further analysis

Progress

Introduction

Segregation; a commonly observed phenomenon as a result

of differences in granular density, size, surrounding fluid and
shape of the particles.
Controlling factors e.g., container shape, vibration frequency,
acceleration, surrounding fluid and particle type all affect the

An initially well mixed bed of 90-125m glass and bronze spheres separating into the bronze
on top regime when vibrated at = 40Hz, = 3.0, in an 80mm x 80mm x 10mm (w, h, d)
glass lined cell with bronze at 25% and glass 75% by volume.

observed granular behaviour.

Granular behaviour of the vertically vibrated spherical shape

Glass & Bronze Before

Vibration

particles has been extensively reported in literature, despite

Separation after 20s

of Vibration
C-2

C-1

the fact that almost all processed granular particles in

industry are of irregular shape, hence their complete
understanding remains poor.
New partition cell separator used to separate fine spherical bronze and glass particles.

Novel Dry Granular Separation

Real World Applications

(a)

(b)

(c)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(d)

Exhaust

Original idea from

the Physics
Community at the
University of
Nottingham.

Function Generator,
Accelerometer,
Oscilloscope and on/off
switch

Motion in vertical
one dimension.
Observations in
the X-Y planes.
Potential for; a
new design,
evolution and
accessing of
particles
separation
techniques.

(h)

copper

Plastic

Separation behaviour of shredded electrical cable size range 250-425 m in water, under
=8.2 and =40 Hz. The pictures form a time sequence from (a) to (h) and correspond to 0,
20, 40, 100, 150, 210, 300, 350 seconds of vibration.
Shredded Electrical cable

Separated Copper

Wooden Assembly

Concrete Blocks

Separation of copper from 106-212m shredded electrical wires after vibration at =50 Hz
and =4
Pair of connected Loud
Speakers

Conclusions
New promising dry separation technique for mixtures of fine
particles with high density and/or size differences.

Separation Cell

Detailed assessment and extension of this separation

technique to a range of industrially relevant particles is
currently underway.