(53e) Enhanced Distillation Column By Modifying Column Internal

Endeavoring towards greater sustainability drives the process industries to search for opportunities to improve the efficiency and/or capacity of distillation columns and sequences. Numerous academics and practitioners are active in this field and utilize a range of approaches to provide theoretically sound conceptual, technology advanced solutions. Two main approaches have been adopted for the design of distillation system retrofits to increase the capacity and/or reduce the energy requirement including replacing existing internals with high-capacity and/or high-efficiency internals and revamping the process by improving the utilization of existing equipment and making relatively minor modifications, including adjusting the operating conditions, adding equipment, etc. Replacing existing column internals not only promotes separation, but also governs the column hydraulic performance. The retrofit of an existing column, such as the replacement of existing trays or packings with effective alternatives, is a frequent option because the user companies strive to increase production with minimal investment. Note that the column internal refers to vapor-liquid contactor and others, such as vapor and liquid distributors, liquid collectors, demister, draw trays, chimney trays, packing support trays. In this work, only column internal trays and packings are mentioned. Furthermore, column internal structure modifications are analyzed and evaluated. Numerous industrial cases, in which the existing column internal was modified or replaced with high performance trays/packings, are reviewed.

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2015R1D1A3A01015621). This research was also supported by C1 Gas Refinery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT & Future Planning (NRF-2016M3D3A1A019132622)