(82g) Research and Development about a New Catalytic Distillation Structured Packing

Our team developed a new type of modular catalytic structured packing Winpak-C. Systematic studies like theoretical simulations and experimental validations were carried out to guide the industry production, which has successfully realized the industrial application.

In the process of development, packing property, pressure drop, liquid holdups, gas loading velocity were tested. Based on which, a revised irrigated pressure drop model were proposed and fitted well with the experimental results.

In order to meet the production requirement, we optimized the dry pressure drop of Winpak-C with the help of Solidworks, Gambit, Fluent and Tecplot 360. By analyzing the flow pattern near the packing junction, we proposed that reducing the height of the reactive elements to allow the gas streamlines become more gradual. The model and the optimization method were validated by the experiments. The irrigated pressure drop and other system also proved that the model is credible.

We also compared axial and radial dispersion coefficient of the reactive elements. Based on the RTD curves which obtained by the conductometer, residence time, dimensionless variance, skewness, axial and radial dispersion coefficient can be calculated which highlight the advantages of Winpak-C compare with traditional catalytic distillation structured packing.

We will introduce some industrial application cases in different process base on our new catalytic structured packing in terms of successfully applications in MTBE production, light gaso-line etherification, isomerization reactions.