(184c) High Performance Flexipro® Fixed Valve Tray

The quest for energy savings, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and maximizing return on investments are driving the development of distillation trays that maximize capacity and efficiency, while also considering reliability. Fixed valve trays offer mechanical reliability and fouling resistance benefits relative to moving valve trays. Moving valve trays have the advantage of maintaining reasonable efficiencies to lower vapor rates, which yields a wider operating range than conventional fixed valves or sieve decks. The FLEXIPRO® high performance fixed valve was developed to simultaneously optimize the capacity, efficiency, pressure drop, fouling resistance and reliability of valve trays. The tray has higher capacity than other fixed valves, turn-down ratios of larger than 4:1 were achieved, the efficiency is comparable with smaller fixed valves, larger clearances are used to address fouling concerns, and with it being a fixed valve, the mechanical reliability concern around moving valves is addressed. Experimental data from two large diameter pilot columns and examples of applications will be presented.