Use of Structured Packing as a Dualflow Tray in Distillation

Abstract

A novel dualflow tray design has been studied. This new tray type makes use of a thin slice of structured packing and, as such, is named the structured packing tray (SP-tray). The SP-tray was found to have a 44% higher capacity compared with the dualflow sieve tray using high liquid density systems. However, the capacity and turndown of the SP-tray are much more dependent on the liquid density of the system than the dualflow sieve tray. It was found that the efficiency of the SP-tray remains fairly constant over a wide range of vapour loadings. In regions where vapour loadings were low enough that no froth exists on the surface of the tray, the SP-tray had efficiencies 100% greater than the dualflow sieve tray. The occurrence of the additional vapour–liquid contact time present within the SP-tray itself leads to a nearly infinite turndown ratio.