Process Simulation of Pretreatment and Cold Flow in Fluidized Bed of Poplar Wood Using Aspen Plus

Abstract This study employs Aspen Plus to simulate the pretreatment and cold flow of poplar wood in a fluidized bed, revealing key insights into process efficiency and hydrodynamics. The results show that (i) grinding poplar wood results in over 97 % of particles being smaller than 5 mm at a grinding power setting of 2 kWh t −1 , requiring 1.3 kW of power for a processing quantity of 500 kg h −1 ; (ii) drying poplar wood with an initial moisture content of 20 % can be achieved by using hot air at 3000 kg h −1 and 150 °C, poplar wood reaches a moisture content of 6.6 % and a temperature of 50.4 °C after drying, and the overall drying process necessitates a total energy input of 110.6 kW, alongside a heat loss of 3.9 kW for drying 500 kg h −1 of poplar wood; (iii) the minimum fluidization velocity requires 0.147 m s −1 and the overall pressure drop reaches 2.083 kPa when 433.6 kg h −1 poplar wood particles undergo fluidization with 600 kg h −1 nitrogen.