(98g) A New Approach to Intensify the Structured Packing

The structure packing has been widely applied to distillation and absorption for chemical based industrial for decades. However, its capacity and efficiency haven't been improved too much while the demands on high efficient column internals are increasing in the last 20 years. Therefore, the study on new approaches to intensify the packing becomes an active research topic which can bring remarkable economical benefits.

Gas and liquid flow behavior in corrugated structure packing was studied by CFD simulation. It is shown from the results that the collision of cross gas streams causes main part of packing bed pressure drop which makes no contribution on gas-liquid mass-transfer. Furthermore, the liquid deflective flow on traditional corrugation packing surface was notable. Therefore, effective mass-transfer area was reduced.

A new type corrugated packing has been developed based on the CFD simulation and theoretical analysis. It is clear from our studies that reducing the Channel opening angle（Crimp angle）at same specific surface area can reduce the gas pressure drop and control the liquid deflective flow. As a result, the effective mass-transfer area and the inter-phase mass transfer efficiency increased.

The characteristics of the new packing have been studied in a Φ50mm distillation column. It was shown from the results that the pressure drop of the new packing reduced about 30% and mass-transfer efficiency increased about 15% compared with the Mellapak with the same special area.