Recent advances in studies of wet particle fluidization characteristics.

Wet particle fluidization is commonly applied in some industries such as catalytic cracking, pharmaceutical manufacturing, mineral processing, food drying, etc. Understanding the within fluidization characteristics is important for the scale-up, design and optimization of industrial process. This article reviews the recent studies on fluidization characteristics of wet particles in fluidized beds and spouted beds. Both physical experiment and numerical simulation results are included. For physical experiments, the focus is on the development of new measurement methods and the resulting findings. For numerical simulations, the focus is especially on the development of the discrete element method (DEM) which can lead to new insights for wet particle fluidization at particle scale. Finally, challenges and needs for future research on wet particle fluidization are discussed. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]