Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105

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Powder Technology

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Particle number balance approach for simulation of a multi-chamber

fluidized bed urea granulator; Modeling and validation
H. Nemati a,⁎, S.A. Shekoohi b
a
Department of Mechanics, Marvdasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marvdasht, Iran
b
HAMPA Energy Engineering and Design Company, Shiraz, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the present work, a model was proposed to simulate the growth in an industrial multi-chamber fluidized bed
Received 30 October 2019 granulator under steady-state condition. To simulate the growth, it was assumed the coating is the only growth
Received in revised form 7 April 2020 mechanism. Mass balance, as well as particle number balance (PNB), was considered in the simulation. Despite
Accepted 3 May 2020
previous works, it was not assumed that particles in each chamber are at the same age. Consequently, the growth
Available online 06 May 2020
was simulated along the granulator length, from its beginning to the end. In this model, most of the influencing
Keywords:
parameters are collected in one parameter called C1. Using finite difference method, equations were solved and
Urea granulation results were compared with samples from an industrial granulator and very good agreements were observed.
Multi-chamber Sensitivity of the product normalized mass density function to the parameter C1 was also studied. It was found
Fluidized bed that for a specific inlet seeds diameter distribution, d50 of the product is not a linear function of C1.
Population balance © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Particle number balance

1. Introduction A schematic of an industrial fluidized bed urea granulator is repre-

The fertilizer industry plays an important role in providing food
throughout the world and its importance in human survival may not
be ignored. No doubt that the world cannot be fed without the wide-
spread use of fertilizers. Among all different types of fertilizers, urea fer-
tilizer is widely consumed. Its high nitrogen content (46%), ease of use
and flexibility in combination with other types of fertilizers, make
urea as one of the most widely used fertilizers in the world. More than
40% of all food grown in the world is fertilized by urea [1].
Global urea supply is estimated at 179,000 tons in 2014 [2]. Global
fertilizer demand is expected to continue growing moderately in
2018–2019 due to prospects for persisting low-to-medium interna-
tional crop prices [3]. It is predicted that global fertilizer demand will
be slightly below 200,0000 tons in 2022–2023 [3]. There are many
urea fertilizer plants in operation and many others are under construc-
tion. So, in this competitive market, improving knowledge of the urea
granulation plants is very valuable.
In a urea granulation plant, a granulator is a crucial part. An indus-
trial granulator utilizes the fluidized bed to carry growing seeds. Urea
granules are fluidized by flowing air while the small urea seeds are fed
continuously into the granulator. Meanwhile, molten urea is sprayed
onto these seeds. The deposition of tiny urea drops onto the surface of
the seed grows granules continuously up to the end of a granulator.
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: H.Nemati@miau.ac.ir (H. Nemati).
sented in Fig. 1. The urea granulator has an enormous structure. The
length of this granulator is 16.1 m, its width is 4.85 m and the granulator
height is more than 4 m. Furthermore, it can produce around 217 tons/h
urea granules. The small seeds, usually around 2 mm in diameter with
the rate of 83.15 tons/h are fed into the granulator at its beginning. Flu-
idization air inside a duct is also injected through a perforated plate at
the bottom of the granulator. This air fluidizes urea granules and con-
veys them out. Moreover, the air mixes the granules well and removes
the dust toward the exhaust window at the top of the granulator. Sev-
eral sprays are distributed uniformly at the bottom of the granulator.
The molten urea is sprayed over the surface of seeds and grows them,
uniformly. The grown granules get dry and cooled gradually in the
granulator.
Homogeneity of particle size distribution is defined by two parame-
ters: d50 and span of the particle size distribution [4]. d50 indicates the
mass weighted average of particle diameter [5]. Marketable granules
shall meet a specific particle size distribution. So, the product particles
shall be later sieved to remove, the out of range granules. The larger
granules will be crushed and the smaller granules will be stored to be
used later as seeds. So, to have a competitive unit, the product unifor-
mity should be guaranteed [6,7]. However, as it may be clear, the oper-
ation of a granulator is very stochastic, complicated and unpredictable.
Due to this complexity, it is easy to find granulators work with the ca-
pacity less than their nominal capacity which results in high recycle ra-
tios and overloading other process units [8–10].
In the fluidized bed granulator study, different methods may be used
to simulate a granulator such as CFD or DEM-CFD [11–14], or using

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2020.05.010
0032-5910/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105
Fig. 1. Schematic representation of an industrial fluidized bed granulator for urea production.
Population Balance Methods (PBM) or CFD-PBM [15–20]. In this work, a
method is developed and validated against a real industrial urea
multi-chamber fluidized bed granulator based on the concept of Particle
Number Balance (PNB). In this regard, this concept was specialized to
simulate the urea seeds growth inside the industrial urea granulator. It
is shown that this method has a great potential to simulate the growth
process. This approach is straightforward and does not add additional
complexity to the problem.
In continue, main equations including particle number balance
equation, are presented, first. The combination of those equations re-
sults in a series of the ordinary differential equations which relate the
granules diameters to the traveling length. A procedure is also pre-
sented to solve these equations and finally, results are compared with
data collected from the large-scale industrial granulator. The variation
of d50 along the granulator length, is also presented graphically.
2. Principal equations
Fig. 1 shows a simplified view of a urea fluidized bed. As it was men-
tioned, it is usually comprised of several chambers in which seeds grow
to the desired diameter (here, there are three chambers). There is an air
channel beneath the granulator, from which, air is distributed uniformly
into the granulator. A perforated plate conducts air from the duct into
the granulator and fluidizes the granules inside the granulator. Since
air is fed to all chambers by a common duct, the pressure remains con-
stant along the granulator bed floor. However, since the seeds are grow-
ing continuously, the bed height, as well as bed porosity, changes
gradually along the granulator as a result. For the described fluidized
granulator, the following preliminary assumptions may be considered:
1. Granulator operates in a steady-state condition.
2. This would be a one-dimensional problem. Therefore velocity, gran-
ule size, etc. varies only along the granulator length (x-axis). In other
words, plug flow is assumed inside the granulator (See Appendix A).
3. Density of urea granules is constant.
4. The molten urea droplets are distributed uniformly all over a granule
surface.
5. All molten urea droplets reach the surface of the granules [21].
6. Granules are spherical.
7. Based on the assertion of Bertín et al. [22]: “The visual observation of
the product samples does not indicate the presence of either agglom-
erates or granules fragments due to breakage.”. So, granule size
changes by spray coating only.
8. The elutriation, as well as nucleation of fines, is ignored.
97
2.1. Particle number balance equation
Since a large-scale industrial granulator is lengthy (16.1 m), the var-
iation of granular size along the granulator may not be ignored. This as-
sumption is also valid for each chamber. The length of each chamber
itself is more than 5 m. This means that even in each chamber, it may
not be a good idea to ignore the granule size variation and use an aver-
age value for each chamber. Particle number balance (PNB) can provide
this opportunity to simply consider this variation along the granulator
length.
In the proposed approach, particles are considered as a continuous
phase. At the inlet, one can classify the inlet seeds based on diameter
into the finite number of divisions, Dsi. “s” denotes to seed and “i”
shows the ith class of seed diameter. These classes will be traced during
the simulation inside the granulator. During the growth process, each
class with a diameter Dsi, growth to Di. Therefore, a one-to-one corre-
spondence can be set up between seeds number with diameter Dsi
and particles number with diameter Di. Fig. 2 shows a simple graphical
representation of particle number balance method.
In the absence of breakage, agglomeration, elutriation or nucleation
(assumptions 7 and 8), it is expected that for each particle class in the
inlet, the number of particles must be conserved. So, the general conser-
vation law [23,24] may be presented for particle number in ith class:
∂ni
þ ∇:ðVni Þ ¼ 0 ð1Þ
∂t
In the above equation, V is the particles velocity vector and ni is the
number of particles with a diameter Di per unit volume of the control
volume. Since it is assumed that all particles have the same velocity,
the subscript “i” is omitted from the velocity vector (assumption 2).
Under the steady-state condition, Eq. (1) is reduced to:
∇:ðVni Þ ¼ 0 ð2Þ
where V is the particle velocity in the x-direction (assumption 2). It
must be emphasized that Eq. (2) is basically different from the popula-
tion balance equation and using similar symbols shall not be a source of
ambiguity. Table 1 shows these differences. For more details about PBM,
please refer to reference [25].
Integrating Eq. (2) over the volumes of the particles (Ω) and
converting into a surface (∂Ω):
98 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105

π P
Knowing that ∀i ¼ D3i and n_ ¼ n_ i :
6
3 X 3
D n_ ¼ Di n_ i ð8Þ
i

2.2. Mass balance equation

Based on the above assumptions, the overall mass balance equation

will be:

_ s;in −m
m _ out þ m
_ spry ¼ 0 ð9Þ

in which m _ s;in and m

_ out is the total mass flow rate of all seeds at the inlet
and all particles at the outlet respectively. Moreover, m _ spry is the mass
flow rate of liquid urea sprayed over the surfaces of the granules.
Since the free surface fluidized bed pressure is atmospheric (is zero),
the pressure on the fluidized bed floor (perforated plate) is equal to the
pressure drop between the floor to the free surface. This static pressure
is comprised of air partial pressure and granules partial pressure and
can be presented as [22,28]:
2 3
!
Fig. 2. A simplistic graphical explanation of particle number balance method. There is a
6X X 7
one-to-one correspondence between Dsi and Di and each class can be traced during the P¼4 φi ρs þρg 1− φi 5gh ð10Þ
simulation. i
|ffl{zffl} i
ρbed

The air duct pressure beneath the perforated plate, as well as the free
Z Z surface pressure, is constant. Therefore, this static pressure (Eq. (12)) is
∇:ðVni Þd∀ ¼ ðVni Þ:dA ¼ 0 ð3Þ also constant along the granulator. In the above equation, ρs is the den-
|fflfflfflfflffl{zfflfflfflfflffl}
Ω ∂Ω dn_ i sity of solid urea particle, ρg is air gas density and g is the gravitational
acceleration. ρbed is the bed density and is defined as:
or for this one-dimensional system: X
ρbed ¼ φi ρs ð11Þ
dn_ i i
¼0 ð4Þ
dx
_ out are obtained using the
The granulator capacity production, m
The mass flow rate of the ith particle class is [26,27]: modified Bernoulli equation [29]:
_ i ¼ ρs ð∀i n_ i Þ ¼ ρs φi V ðhW Þ sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
m ð5Þ
2P
_ out ¼ Cd
m ρ AW ð12Þ
ρbed bed
based on Eq. (5), the number flow rate of particles is:

Vhφi W in which AW is the outlet window area. Cd is the discharge coefficient

n_ i ¼ ð6Þ
∀i and its value is around 0.5 for particles much smaller than the discharge
area [30].
h = h(x) is the fluidized bed height at the distance x and φi = φi(x) is For urea particles with such high density in comparison with air (ρs
the solid volume fraction of particles with a diameter Di at the distance = 1330 kg/m3 [31]), the second term in Eq. (10) can be easily ignored
x. W is the width of granulator and ∀i is the volume of one particle with and Eq. (10) is reduced to:
diameter Di. X
On the other hand, defining the average particle volume as: P ¼ ρbed gh ¼ ρs gh φi ð13Þ
i
X X
∀ n_ i ¼ ∀i n_ i ð7Þ
i i Bed pressure can be represented as a function of number flow rate,
by replacing φi from Eq. (6) in Eq. (13):
ρs g X
P¼ n_ ∀ ð14Þ
Table 1 VW i i i
Comparison of Eq. (2) with PBM

Symbol PBM PNB Eq. (2) or by replacing Eq. (7):

ni number density number
ρs g ∀ X ρ g∀
V growth rate particle velocity P¼ n_ ¼ s n_ ð15Þ
∇ respect to internal coordinate respect to spatial coordinate WV i i WV
 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105 99

Fig. 4. Solution procedure to solve the Eq. (28).

Granule growth rate, β, is presented as:

Fig. 3. Solution procedure for the modeling of an industrial fluidized bed granulator. dD
¼β ð19Þ
dt

The proof of Eq. (19) is presented by authors in Appendix B. It must

3. Model development
be emphasized that β is not a unique number and depends on the differ-
ent parameters like working temperature, urea melt specifications,
3.1. Mathematical derivation
sprays distribution, etc. So, it varies from one granulator to another.
However, it is well-known that the growth rate is independent of parti-
Starting with Eq. (4) and substituting Eq. (15) yields:
cle size [28,32]. So, for each class of particle:
   
d∑i n_ i PWV d V=∀ d V=∀ dDi dD dx dD
¼ ¼ 0→ ¼ 0→ ¼ β→ i ¼ β→V i ¼ β ð20Þ
dx ρs g dx dx dt dx dt dx

dV d∀ It is assumed that the growth rate is constant along the granulator

¼ ð16Þ
V ∀ length (See Appendix C). Differentiating Eq. (20) with respect to x,
and using Eq. (18) yields:
Assuming spherical particles: ! 
2 2
d D dV dDi d D dD dDi
π 3 V 2i þ ¼ 0→D 2i þ 3 ¼ 0→
∀¼ D ð17Þ dx dx dx dx dx dx
6
0
So, Eq. (16) will be: DDi 00 þ 3D Di 0 ¼ 0 ð21Þ
3
dV dD dV dD where the prime denotes derivative with respect to the x. The solution
¼ 3→ ¼3 ð18Þ
V V D of Eq. (21) is:
D
100 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105

Fig. 5. Sample from the inlet (left) and the outlet (right) granules.

Fig. 6. Three samples of sieves used to find granule size distribution.

−3
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Di 0 ¼ C 1 D ð22Þ 2P
ρbed V ðhL W Þ ¼ Cd ρ AW ð24Þ
ρbed bed

with the boundary condition:

hL is bed height at the end of the granulator where x = L. By using
Eq. (13):
Di ðx ¼ 0Þ ¼ Dsi and Dðx ¼ 0Þ ¼ Ds ð23Þ
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
P 2P
C1 is a constant and Ds is seeds average diameter. Eq. (22) cannot be VW ¼ Cd ρ AW ð25Þ
g ρbed bed
solved analytically and hence shall be solved numerically.
The last step is to calculate C1. At the outlet of the granulator, the
total mass flow rate (summation of Eq. (5) over all the granules diame- On the other hand, by replacing Di 0 from Eq. (22) into Eq. (20) and
ters) shall be equal to the outlet mass flow rate, Eq. (12): rearranging it:

1 1

0.8 0.8

0.6 Seeds experimental data 0.6 Seeds mass density funcon

F (D)

f (D) (1/mm)

Seeds mass cumulave distribuon Granules mass density funcon

0.4 Granules experimental data 0.4

Granules mass cumulave distribuon

0.2 0.2

0 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
D (mm) D (mm)

Fig. 7. Normalized passing cumulative distributions for seeds and granules based on Fig. 8. Normalized mass density function for seeds and granules based on experimental
experimental reports. reports
 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105 101

1
β 3
V¼ D ð26Þ
C1
0.8

Finally, C1 can be optioned by substituting V from (26) into Eq. (25)

and rearranging: 0.6
Granules experimental data
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

F (D)
P β W 3
C1 ¼ DL ð27Þ 0.4 Granules mass cumulave
2ρbed gCdAW distribuon (Numerical)

C1 is an important parameter, since it is a combination of different
parameters and can be used as an iterative parameter instead of using
β in the trial-error method in solving Eq. (22). Changing the trial-error
parameter from C1 to β simplifies the solution procedure, considerably.
3.2. Numerical solution and boundary conditions
The following finite difference procedure is proposed to solve
Eq. (22). It is required to discretize the granulator length as shown in
Fig. 1. In this regard, Eq. (22) is discretized to:
Di; j −Di; j−1 2C 1
¼ 3
x j −x j−1 D j þ D j−1
3 mixed well and placed in the sealed bag and labeled. The same proce-
Di, j means Di at x = xj. The boundary conditions for Eq. (28) are:
- at x0 = 0 (at the beginning of the granulator): Di, 0 = Dsi.
X X
_ out ¼
- at xL = L (at the end of the granulator): m _i¼
m ρs ð∀i n_ i Þ
i i
Eq. (28) converges fast even with a coarse length step.
3.3. Model solution procedure
For the given, m _ spry and granulator working pressure, an initial
_ s;in, m
guess is made for C1. In each section of the granulator, the diameters of
the particles for all classes are calculated and the procedure is continued
by marching to the end of the granulator. At the end of the granulator
X
where xL = L, the granules mass flow rate is ρs ð∀i n_ i Þ. If this calcu-
0.2
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
D (mm)
Fig. 9. Comparison between granules normalized mass density function based on
experimental reports and calculation.
from the free-falling streams at the inlet and outlet of the unit, based on
well-known guidelines [33]. Then the three samples of the inlet were
ð28Þ
dure was performed for the products. Fig. 5 shows a sample from the
inlet and the outlet granules. Labeled bags were sent to a laboratory to
determine particle size distributions. In the laboratory, each bag was re-
duced to two laboratory samples by a fixed chute splitter. Dry sieving
technique [33] was used to determine the corresponding particle size
distributions. A stack of 13 stainless steel sieves based on ASTM
E11:01 [34] (between 75 μm to 9.5 mm) was employed for the analysis.
Sieving was done by a motor-driven sieve shaker for 20 min. The mean
values of two samples of the inlet, as well as two samples of the outlet,
were reported as final results. Three examples of used sieves are shown
in Fig. 6. Based on the laboratory reports, normalized passing cumula-
tive distributions were calculated and plotted in Fig. 7 for both inlet
seeds and outlet granules.
To have a continuous cumulative mass distribution function(F(D)),
Rosin-Rammler distribution was used [35,36]:
k

i
F ðDÞ ¼ 1−e−ðD=λÞ ð29Þ
lated mass flow rate is lower than the real mass flow rate of the granu-
lator, the guessed value for C1 should be increased and in contrast, If the For the above equation, the normalized mass density function is (f
calculated mass flow rate is higher, the guessed value for C1 shall be re- (D)):
duced. This procedure must be repeated until the calculated and actual  k  
mass flow rate be close enough. dF ðDÞ D k k
f ðDÞ ¼ ¼ e−ðD=λÞ ð30Þ
The numerical solution of growth simulation involves two iteration dD λ D
loops as indicated in Fig. 3.
An internal loop is required to calculate Di, j in each section which is
indicated by the dashed line rectangle in Fig. 3. The detailed procedure
of this internal loop is described graphically in Fig. 4. 3.5

Ds=1 mm
4. Model validation 3 Ds=2 mm
Ds=3 mm
4.1. Industrial granulation plant data
2.5
To validate the performance of the proposed procedure for the seeds
D/Ds

growth prediction, experimental data from a large-scale multi-chamber 2

industrial granulator were used. This granulator belongs to the petro-
chemical industry. Its length is around 6.1 m; its width is 4.85 m with
a height of more than 4 m. Its production capacity is 217 tons/h. The 1.5
small seeds are fed into granulator with a rate of 83.15 tons/h. Three
samples of the granulator solid seeds and outlet stream were collected
1
under its steady-state operation. Under this steady condition, the mass 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
flow rate of outlet granules and seeds were available. Plant online mea- x/L
surement was showing the mass flow rate of molten urea to sprays also.
The granulator products and seeds were sampling three times manually Fig. 10. Normalized diameter against the normalized particle traveling length.
102 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105

n_ i is constant all over the granulator. At any arbitrary x,

1

0.9
C1=0.9 _ i n_ i ρs π=6 D3i
m n_ D3
0.8 wi ¼ ¼ ¼ i 3i ð33Þ
C1=1.4
_
m _ s π=6 D
nρ
3
n_ D
0.7 C1=1.8
C1=2.2
0.6 and combining with Eq. (31) yields:
F(D)

0.5
n_ i D3i
0.4 f ðDi Þ ¼ 3
ð34Þ
n_ D ðDi −Di−1 Þ
0.3

0.2 Eq. (34) is an effective tool to transfer number-based data to mass-

0.1 based data.
0
1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.5 6 4.3. Discussion and conclusion
D (mm)

Fig. 11. Effect of C1 on granules normalized mass density function.
For both inlet seeds and outlet granules, f(D) is plotted in Fig. 8. In
the discrete form, the normalized mass density function for Di class
can be presented as:
wi
f ðDi Þ ¼
Di −Di−1
where wi , is the normalized mass of class i ranging from Di−1 to Di.
4.2. Method implementation
The measured values are based on mass while the proposed proce-
dure is based on the number. Therefore, to implement the method, it
is required to propose a procedure to transfer between number and
mass. To do this, based on Eq. (31), normalized mass in each class can
be calculated. If the range Di − Di−1 is small enough, it is acceptable to
assume that all particles in this range have the same diameter, Di [33].
For this analysis, Di − Di−1 was selected equal to 0.02 mm. For 1 kg/s
of the inlet seeds, particles number flow rate in each class is:
wi;s
n_ i ¼
ρs π=6 D3si
For the known inlet seed mass distribution, the outlet mass distribu-
tion was calculated and compared in Fig. 9. Based on the described pro-
cedure several values for C1were guessed until the calculated outlet
mass flow rate ( m _ out;Calc ) approached the reported value i.e. m _ out .
Under this condition, the guess value is: C1 = 1.8 m3. Based on Fig. 9,
a relatively good agreement can be found between numerical and ex-
perimental results. Moreover, it is seen that weights of small particles
(particles with a diameter between 2 and 3 mm) are slightly under-
predicted by the numerical method. Based on the proposed method,
ð31Þ
all particles even the smallest ones will grow. Consequently, it is reason-
able not to see very tiny particles. Nutrition and agglomeration of spray
droplets can be the main sources of these fine particles.
For more information, the normalized diameters of three arbitrary
classes are plotted against the normalized particle traveling length in
Fig. 10. This figure shows how different seeds grow along the
granulator.
As the final step, the effect of C1 on the granules normalized mass
density function was explored.
Since C1 is directly proportional to β, it is expected that variation of β
affects the C1 values. To show the sensitivity of results to C1 values, cal-
culations were repeated for various values of C1 among 0.9 to 2.2 m3 for
that given seeds sizing distribution. C1 can vary by changing the spray
flow rate or bed pressure. As it is clear in Fig. 11, by increasing C1 the
minimum size of granules is also increased. Furthermore, the dashed
line in this figure shows the diameter in which F(D) = 0.5. F(D) = 0.5
indicates a granule diameter at which, one-half of the granules (by
weight) has a diameter less than or equal to that diameter. This diame-
ð32Þ
ter is called d50. The variation of d50 with respect to C1 was also shown in
Fig. 12. The relation between d50 and C1 is not linear.

5. Summary
3.8

In the present work, the growth of particles in an industrial multi-

3.7 2.5, 3.71
chamber, fluidized bed urea granulator was simulated. Particle number
3.6
balance (PNB) method was utilized and adopted in the simulation.
1.8, 3.56 Based on the best of the authors' knowledge, this method was not
used to simulate a multi-chamber granulator in previous studies. Re-
d 50 (mm)

3.5
sults were compared with the product of a large-scale industrial granu-
3.4
1.4, 3.38 lator and good agreement was found. Besides its simplicity, considering
continuous growth along the granulator is the predominant feature of
3.3
this model. This model collects most of the effective parameters in one
parameter called C1 that reduces considerably the difficulties of trial-
3.2
1, 3.17 errors procedures. Normalized particle diameter against the normalized
3.1 particle traveling length along the granulator was also shown for three
0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 sample particle sizes. Later, the effect of parameter C1 on the product
C1 (m3) normalized mass density function for the given seeds diameters distri-
bution was studied. It was shown that for a fixed inlet seeds diameter
Fig. 12. Variation of d50 with respect to to C1. distribution, d50 of the product is not a linear function of C1.
 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105 103

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial

interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank Pardis Petrochemical Company for

providing the required samples. Moreover, the authors are grateful to
Professor M. Seraj for reviewing and his insightful comments and
suggestions.
Appendix A. Plug flow criteria
The perfect plug flow indicates to this fact that the particles are not
to be mixed with any other particles ahead or behind. In fact, the lateral
mixing of particles in the flow is allowed. But particles shall not be
mixed along the flow path. It is the necessary and sufficient condition
that in a perfect plug the residence time in the bed is the same for all
of the particles [37]. According to this definition, the perfect plug flow
is only an idealization and therefore, some deviation resulting from
back-mixing is expected. This mixing would be caused by the agitation
of particles by gas bubbles [38]. The axial mixing in the granulator can
be characterized by a dimensionless number, known as the axial disper-
sion number [39] and is defined as:
DA τ DA
B¼ ¼ ð1AÞ
L2 VL
where DA is particle diffusivity. τ is residence time, V is particle axial ve-
locity and L is particle traveling length along the granulator. Axial dis-
persion number shows the deviation from perfect plug flow. It means
that for perfect plug flow B = 0. However, for B ≤ 0.01 the flow can be
considered as a good approximation of plug flow [40]. In most of the
large-scale industrial granulators, the traveling length, L, is long enough
to consider the particles flow as perfect plug flow (e.g. in this study L =
16.1 m). So, the plug flow is a common assumption in most studies con-
cern industrial granulator [21,22]. However, to calculate Eq. (1A), one
can use the Reay's correlation [41]:
V 0 −V mf
DA ¼ 3:71  10−4 ð2AÞ
V 0:33
mf
or [42]:
h  i
1:49 0:01ðh−0:05Þ þ 0:00165ρg V 0 −V mf V 0:23
DA ¼ ð3AÞ
Fig. 1B. Molten urea droplets surround the urea granule in all directions uniformly.
Based on the above explanation, growth rate is independent of gran-
ule diameter, however since the working condition, droplets adhesion,
droplets distribution and other effective parameters are different in dif-
ferent granulators, β is not a unique value.
Appendix C. Requirements of growth rate assumptions
Based on Appendix B and knowing that β = 2K:
1 dmp β
¼ :A ð1CÞ
ρs dt 2
dmp
In which mp is the particle mass. It is clear that is proportional to
dt
m_ spry
_ spry . In other words
m is constant. This means that If m _ spry is the
β
same in all chambers of the granulator, the growth rate will be differ-
ent in each chamber. However, if the growth rate is the same in all
chambers, it implies that the distribution of m _ spry shall vary accord-
ingly. This means that numbers of spray nozzles in different cham-
bers are not the same and for example, the first chamber has more
spray nozzles. In this study, without loss of generality, it is assumed
that the growth rate is constant. However, this assumption does
not reduce the solution generality; since the growth rate with any
form can be modeled as a piecewise constant function and the pro-
posed procedure is still applicable.
To complete this discussion, the normalized required mass in-
jection is shown against normalized granulator length in Fig. 1C.
Normalized required mass injection is defined as the ratio of
spray mass flow rate in each location to the total spray mass flow
rate in the granulator. This figure shows that for example around
0.7% of total molten urea mass flow rate shall be injected in the
x/L = 0.2.
1.2%
1.0%
Normalized mass injection

1=3
V mf
0.8%

in which Vmf and V0 are the superficial gas velocity at minimum fluidi- 0.6%
zation and through a bed of solids respectively. h is bed height and
V is the axial solid flow velocity. Eq. (3A) is valid up to a bed height of
0.4%
hbed = 0.15 m. For the bed height below 0.05 m, the bed height term
shall be neglected.
0.2%

0.0%
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
Appendix B. Growth rate simulation x/L

To simulate the particle growth rate, it is assumed that small drop- Fig. 1C. Normalized distribution of molten urea along the normalized granulator
lets surround the particle in all directions uniformly (Fig. 1B), length.
104
Moreover, the cumulative form of Fig. 1C is shown in Fig. 2C. For
comparison, the cumulative distribution for the case of uniform
spray arrangement is also shown in Fig. 2C. As expected, for the
uniform spray distribution, the cumulative mass injection distribu-
tion is a line with slope of 1. As an example for the granulator with
three equal chambers, for uniform spray distribution 33% of total
molten urea must be injected in the first chamber, however, with
the assumption of constant growth rate, this value shall be in-
creased to 40%.
1
0.9 x/L=1/3
Cumulative mass injection distribution
0.8 Constant Growth rate
0.7 Uniformt spray distribuon
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3 0.40
0.2
0.1
0 [29] E. Grieco, L. Marmo, Predicting the pressure drop across the solids flow rate control
0 0.2 0.4 0.6
x/L
Fig. 2C. Cumulative normalized distribution of molten urea along the normalized
granulator length.
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Nomenclature
AW: Outlet window area (m2)
C1: Constant coefficient (m3)
Cd: Discharge coefficient
Di: Particle diameter of class i (m)
Dsi: Seed diameter of class i (m)
D: Particles average diameter (m)
F(D): Cumulative mass distribution function
f(Di): Normalized mass density function (1/m)
g: Gravitational acceleration (m/s2)
h: Bed height (m)
ni: Number of particles with diameter Di per unit volume
m _ i : Mass flow rate of ith particle class (kg/s)
m _ out : Particles discharge through the granulator outlet
ni: Number flow rate of all particles (#/s)
n_ i : Number flow rate of particles (#/s)
P: Pressure (Pa)
t: Time (s)
V: Particle velocity (m/s)
∀: Volume of one particle (m3)
W: Width of granulator (m)
 H. Nemati, S.A. Shekoohi / Powder Technology 369 (2020) 96–105 105

_i
m
wi ¼ : Normalized mass of class i ranging from Di−1 to Di Subscripts
m_

Greek characters calc: calculated

in: Inlet
β: Growth rate (m/s) L: At the outlet where x = L
φ: Solid volume fraction out: Outlet
ρbed: Bed density (Kg/m3) s: Seed, Solid
ρg: Gas air density (Kg/m3) spry: spray
ρs: Density of solid urea particle (Kg/m3)