Development and characterization of a modular absorption column for transformable plants

Abstract

The process industry is facing twofold challenges: market challenges like volatile demands and portfolios on the one hand and challenges in process engineering like long development times and partly oversized equipment on the other hand. Therefore production concepts containing respective apparatuses with increased flexibility, like transformable plants with modular devices, become important to handle the volatilities. Due to the modular construction capacity can be increased either by equalling up from general structures or by numbering up equipment. In this way a smart scale-up of the modular system becomes feasible. Thereby only the single module has to be analysed and the time-to-market is reduced. One main challenge of this smart scale-up of modular devices includes an equal distribution of the feed flow into every single module. In this contribution first experimental studies on a newly developed packed absorption module with rectangular cross section are compared to a conventional packed column. For each kind of apparatus, modular and conventional, the results of measurements include a random packing (Pall Ring 25M) and a structured packing (Raschig™ Super-Pak 250). Comparing the experimental results between a packed absorption module and conventional packed columns the feasibility of this new, modular apparatus can be shown. Concerning structured packings, the module behaves in the same range compared to conventional packed columns. Although the single module exhibits the expected losses in capacity for the gas and liquid load, it reveals results in the same range for the mass transfer efficiency considering the reduced cross-section. In summary, the modular absorption column represents a promising approach for the implementation of a modular multiphase unit into transformable production plants.