Investigation of hydrodynamic performance and effective mass transfer area for Sulzer DX structured packing

摘要

> The hydrodynamic performance in terms of pressure drop (? P ) and liquid holdup ( h _L ), and tshe effective mass transfer area ( a _e ) of Sulzer DX structured packing were investigated at 293.15?K and 101.3 kPa. In addition, the flooding velocity ( u _F ) was also calculated based on the experimental results of liquid holdup, and the effective voidage correction factor (?) was obtained by combining the Billet model and the experimental effective fraction. The liquid volume method and pressure difference from just below to above the column packing approach are used to describe the hydrodynamic performance in a structured packing column. Experimental results showed that the operational conditions in terms of gas flow rate, liquid flow rate, viscosity, and liquid systems strongly affect the hydrodynamic performance. The experimental comparison between the pressure drop profiles in air‐water (polyethylene oxide [PEO]) and MEA‐H ₂ O‐CO ₂ systems indicated that both the reacting MEA and CO ₂ partial pressure can enhance the pressure drop value. In addition, the Bain‐Haugen correlation model was developed to predict the flooding velocity data with an acceptable AARD of 8.1%, and a model was also successfully proposed to predict the values of liquid holdup with an AARD of 11.8%, which is lower than 14.7% in Billet model. Furthermore, the effective mass transfer area was found to be increased by increasing both the liquid and gas flow rate by using NaOH‐H ₂ O‐CO ₂ system. A model was also proposed to calculate the experimental a _e with an acceptable AARD% of 19.52, and this built model (Eq. 39) can reasonably explain the experimental phenomenon. ? 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J , 64: 3625–3637, 2018