Received: 6 April 2018 | Revised: 31 July 2018 | Accepted: 7 August 2018 DOI: 10.1002/ppap.201800071 FULL PAPER Modeling and experimental investigation of a Wurster type fluidized bed reactor coupled with an air atmospheric pressure plasma jet for the surface treatment of polypropylene particles Seyedshayan Tabibian 1 | Farzaneh Arefi-Khonsari 1 | Abdessadk Anagri 1 | Mikel Leturia 2 | Antoine Moussalem 1 | Mario Moscosa Santillan 3 | Khashayar Saleh 2 | Yasmine Touari 1 | Jerome Pulpytel 1 1 Laboratoire Interfaces et Systèmes Electrochimiques, LISE, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, F-75005 Paris, France 2 Laboratoire Transformations Intégrées de la Matière Renouvelable (EA TIMR 4297 UTC-ESCOM), Sorbonne Universités, Université de Technologie de Compiègne, 60200 Compiègne, France 3 Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi, Potosi, Mexico Correspondence Seyedshayan Tabibian, Laboratoire Interfaces et Systèmes Electrochimiques, LISE, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, F- 75005 Paris, France. Email: seyedshayan.tabibian@upmc.fr Funding information Université Pierre et Marie Curie; Labex MATISSE; Programme Doctoral de Génie des Procédés Polypropylene (PP) particles are used for various purposes, however, the good mechanical properties of PP are counterbalanced by a poor wettability. The wettability of PP particles was therefore improved by an atmospheric pressure blown-arc air plasma jet treatment in a new designed homemade Wurster fluidized bed reactor (Wurster-FBR). This reactor, was used to treat 200 g of particles per batch. The surface free energy of PP particles determined by the Zisman method showed an increase from 30.7 to 38.6 mN m −1 after 120 s of treatment. XPS results showed a 5% increase of the atomic concentration of oxygen on the surface of the treated particles. In order to describe the process, a 2D axisymmetric non- isothermal k-ε turbulent model was used to determine the velocity field, pressure, and temperature profile of the gas phase inside the reactor. Furthermore an Eulerian-Eulerian multiphasic CFD model was added to determine the dynamics of the particles inside the reactor, and the results were compared with fast imaging, thermocouple, and anemometry measurements. These investigations are very important to monitor the homogeneity of the particle treatments, to determine the average effective treatment time for each particle and to avoid overheating of thermally sensitive PP. KEYWORDS atmospheric pressure plasma, CFD modeling, polymer surface treatment and coating technology, Wurster fluidised-bed reactor 1 | INTRODUCTION The use of polymer materials has several advantages as compared to metals such as reduced weight and ease of machinability. However, the inert character of the material results in poor adhesion characteristics with other materials as well as poor paintability and printability. In order to improve these properties without changing the bulk properties of the Abbreviations: APPFB, atmospheric pressure plasma fluidized bed; APPJ, atmospheric pressure plasma jet; CFD, computational fluid dynamics; CVD, chemical vapor deposition; DBD, dielectric barrier discharge; DEM, discrete element method; FBR, fluidized bed reactor; FTIR, fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy; HDPE, high density polyethylene; HMDSO, hexamethyldisiloxane; LMWOM, low molecular weight oxidized material; PCFBR, plasma circulating fluidized bed reactor; PE, polyethylene; PP, polypropylene; SEM, scanning electron microscope; RANS, reynolds-averaged navier-stocks equations; XPS, X-ray photoelectron spectrometry; UHMW PE, ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene; WFBR, wurster fluidized bed reactor. Plasma Process Polym. 2018;e1800071. www.plasma-polymers.com © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim | 1 of 15 https://doi.org/10.1002/ppap.201800071