How Sensitive is Your Treating Plant to Operating Conditions

One of the most neglected areas in gas treating is the proper selection of tower internals in both absorbers and regenerators. Apart from hydraulic considerations, the mass transfer performance of tower internals unfortunately has tended to be almost completely ignored. When parts-per-million specifications must be met on product gases, selecting the wrong packing size or bed depth can result in a failed design. For many years, packing has had a bad reputation in absorption and distillation at high pressure. Part of the reason is inattention to proper distributor design. Another is the persistent and still unresolved difficulty in translating ideal stages to actual packed bed depths and the selection of a particular commercial packing. The effect in the contactor’s diameter and height of different random packing sizes and types is compared to structured packing and two types of commercially proven valve trays for an LNG project under study that initially will process 745 KNCMH of a gas containing 11.5% of CO2.